By DS Maolalai -- what will they do without you there tomorrow? likely the same things they'd do if you'd stayed. if the whole place were going to fall into pieces it would fall down then on you as well. go to athens – why not? they have reasonable fish at what I've heard are reasonable prices. go to italy too. we won't miss you because I know that you'll call. there is more in this world than a cleanly typed personnel document. I can't count the amount of times I've thought

By DS Maolalai -- what's that – that a italian greyhound? he was bent down already giving margot a scratch on her chin. a whippet I told him. just small for her size – immediately felt like an idiot. a whippet he said not even noticing. she'd come right up to him. my dog has an instinct for people which I've never shared. it would be much easier saying yes to whatever they ask me. who really cares what a dog is?

By DS Maolalai -- overhead wires are detailed in thin lines of snow. on the ground nothing's detailed. ice thick as a dinnerplate, brittle as over- cooked steaks and the plates which they sit on and snow lies on that. I kick through the 5am closed lights of chinatown restaurants, over toward saint patrick station, university ave and the edge of the sky- scraper neighbourhoods. stop for a coffee and plastic- wrapped bagel in corner cafe chain, hunched under high weights of off

By John Grey [Third place] -- Can my heart be a guide to old kisses, a trip-tik through time, first names and nights, a stash of intimacy so potent, it takes a memory to hold it in? Why keep a moment in mothballs, a sigh in a suitcase, a moan in a decades-old moon? Must it single out this dawn or that one? Can only the survivor claim it all? I've been with you forever it seems but everlasting has a starting point. And before then? To you, the abyss. To me, moments of ext

By John Grey -- I am sorry, son for the hours you spent with Mrs. Campbell, practicing your scales, playing the simplest of melodies over and over and over until your fingers near bled and your young back ached like an old man’s. Three years, you were under her musical thumb – not just in her presence, but even alone, tinkering with the keys while her shadow loomed over your hands and shoulders. Three years, and still you were as far from the concert stage, as far from ma

By Salvatore Difalco -- Time Is Not Fundamental I don’t think walking backwards would change anything. I don’t wear a watch. I mean, I stopped wearing one long before smartphones made watches unnecessary. My friend Ira, who inherited some money from a rich uncle, collects watches—Rolex, Patek Philipe, Omega, and then rarer watch brands like Urwerk, Enicar and Sinn. My father wore an old Omega his father had given to him back in Sicily. My father died of lung cancer when

By Ethan Le -- In a field dimly lit by floodlights, the community gathered to kill the cane toads, creatures branded invasive, disruptive, corruptive. Traps were set, aerosol sprays hissed, and each strike was celebrated as a victory for “balance,” as though justice itself were being pioneered in the wetlands. Hours into the marsh, the last toad was caught. Its final croak was drowned beneath the roar of applause. “We finally got it, that pest!” someone shouted. Ivy clapped

By Matthew Wherttam [Third place] -- This year, I should see the Southern Stars. I would have to travel below the equator to do that, but wouldn't it be worth the trip? The light from those stars has taken hundreds, thousands, and, in some cases, millions and billions of years to reach us, and those stars have been moving to other places all those years. Some of them have even blown themselves to bits in gigantic bursts that will also take many years to get to Earth. So don

By Matthew Wherttam -- The morning after an oversized blizzard on Long Island, my brothers and I stuffed ourselves into our heaviest winter clothing and then tried and failed to open our front door, which was piled high with snow. And so was our back door. The windows on our first floor were frosted over, and upstairs, where we got our first good view of all of it, we found that the snow had arranged itself around our neighborhood in swells and dips and furrows and ridges. S

By Jehan Z Bano -- Opening scene: Act 1:G:Gary’ss yard in his house patio As the sun set, Gary retreated to his hammock in the garden to unwind for the evening. He snuggled in and pulled out his writing pad, slowly sipping on his warm chamomile. He had just barely started brainstorming for an updated resume when he began feeling strangely drowsy. One yawn led to another, and before he knew it, a profound slumber had completely overtaken him. Within minutes, he found himse

By John Grey -- The down-city park is ripe for strolling. On a hot cloudless day, the scenery is as expected: bare-chested pretty boys laze on concrete, women tan their legs, and some guy with his hat low to hide half his face, hawks knock-off handbags. The fountain gushes while locals bathe in its gentler reaches of its spray. My eye’s a camera, Fellini’s maybe, scouting for a scene: a chorus line of Puerto Rican dancers, an artist who draws in chalk on pavement, peeling

By Corey A.D. -- Bulldagger, staring daggers, at the sludge upon the ground. Her lez has their legs covered in it's slurry. The dirt stains and drowns calves covered by their gown. It's less like they let it happen and more like they don't share her fury. Fury-filled dyke has her dyad but what graces her lips is a frown. Since mud leers but never learns That they are taken and a lezzy.

By Pleco Philodendron -- I hear her when she’s lurking, an anklet And toe rings, and I smell it in her hair— The ring around the toilet bowl, the sink, The fringe of offset yellows that creep Up the shower coverings, the safari In her sheets. I imagine breathing hot Inflammatorily through the nostrils Flaring snot since the nose is pressed Against the skull too closely, the sheen Of wiping on the sleeve, the food caught In the dales of her chins’ multiplicities: What refuge d

By Julia Rose Maseda -- His hands hold me like they are the sharpest of knives, Painful. Enduring the pressure I bear with each breath I take. But just like a cut, there is warmth in every ounce of blood His hands draw from my skin. Its only when he lets go That I feel the cold air On the wounds he left. Then, he grabs me again, and thankful I am, I’m warm once more. Forgetting how I became cold in the first place- (before?) and when he leaves again, (Oh?) how cold I will be-

By Mandolin Thorne -- Challenge me and my convictions Cover me in premonitions “The Nephilim are sleeping still!” ...but they’re asking me to kill Stray renegades among the Fae Warned You it would be this way I know it’s so, for I was told While in the Faerie Lands of gold Where we awakened slow and lazy The nature of our essence hazy “It is time to go.” they said “For all the world believes you dead.” Now fire is hot; fire it burns Up from the ashes a Pheonix returns So dead

By Debi McKee -- All I’ve learned and been told is to work your hardest, never fold You’ll reap in profits, the world’s riches in diamonds and gold All you have to do is try until you succeed Well, I’ve been trying until my hands bleed This barren earth is where I planted my seeds As I look up, I see this world of mine is all dusty plains When damp green grasslands are what I need Pray the dreary yellow sky turns viridescent blue when it rains Will it rain? Any moisture in th

By Aaron Aguirre -- Form is found by its absence. From the empty space beside me, And the flowers untouched in the hills. I know it from my warm feet, covered by wool on winter nights. How I wish to turn and see drool at the edge of her lips—mine. Moonlit flowers at the bedside—hers. With a heart warm and feet cold.

By Aaron Aguirre -- I dream of saffron windows And quivering trumpets, A sway of shadows on sunset-stained walls. I dream of home, in my arms, and on my neck.

By Aaron Aguirre -- Some find it silly, But loss is a beautiful thing. It ventures where we dare not, Where we hardly get to see. And presses against that small, gentle thing. May it have fields to burn, May they burn bright, May you feel their warmth in your throat And in your eyes.

By John Grey -- I was out of the house, on my own at last. “You’ll regret it,” my parents said. My first apartment boasted crates as chairs and a mattress for a bed. Its three rooms were so cramped it felt like the walls were hugging me. I didn’t have a car which was just as well as there was no allotted parking space for my hovel within a hovel. I ate haphazardly, slept restlessly, sat uncomfortably, entertained unfortunately. I didn’t just live there, I became the place, st