Ella Jensen

Lydia Falls

"did i dig up // these roots too soon, did i bury your presence in earth, will i see you again / above the raven rocks"

Bob Hicok

"Sixty four times three / is one hundred and ninety two crayons. / Have you ever had one hundred and ninety two crayons / at the same time?"

Nathan Nicolau

"Sewing is one of those things I can’t do / (in-out-in-out-in-out-in-out-in) / because putting the needle in my hand would make / me question."

Nikita Andester

"Do you know what I mean when I say there’s a feeling someone gets in their eyes? You can look at the woman you love and see when she’s drawn the blinds, decided to pretend nobody’s home? And suddenly you’re sure that no matter what you say, she’ll never hear it because she turned the TV on full blast even though you were mid-sentence?"

Shannon Frost Greenstein

"in Heaven I could forget how I drink Diet Coke to fill my stomach, to quiet / my ravenous hunger, to fill the hole in my core I am still too broken to fill with food."

Elinora Westfall

"It was the woman by the window who made her stay - the woman who, by chance, or perhaps something else entirely, was sitting perfectly still, and perfectly framed between the ever disappearing ribbons of steam."

Yuan Changming

"It is a landscape newly relocated / Into my heart’s backyard. Then I sit / On my legs, meditating about there / Being no light in the picture"

Katie Doarn

"'She’s a witch, that’s what she is,'” said Colin, as they wrapped themselves in the scratchy flannel blankets. Each of them fell asleep thinking of ways to rid their land of Karina, though in their dreams they were learning how to keep her."

Nicole Desjardins Gowdy

"Ophelia has words for her pain / she calls herself / survivor / she rises from the ashes of her former self"

Stephen Newton

"I looked down into the black void beneath the bridge, and for a giddy moment, I felt weightless, like when a car goes too fast over a hill. My mother put me down, pulled my knitted cap snug over my ears, and asked, 'Can you find your way home?'"

Lance Dornan

"I’d never considered myself a sailor before that night, when I slipped out from river into sea."

Sandra Kolankiewicz

"I understand about your silence/now, how you craved quiet when your empire collapsed"