image curtesy of Public Domain Review

by Lucy McBee

My name is Elizabeth Holmes.

But I’m not the one you’re thinking of.

I’m not a Stanford dropout.

I’ve never been on the cover of Fortune.

A former Secretary of State has never sided with me over his own grandson.

I can’t speak Mandarin.

I’ve only worn blood red lipstick once, to a Halloween party. I went as Elvira (and was mistaken for Morticia Addams, I suppose because I lacked the requisite cleavage),

image Lorenz Stoer (1567), from The Public Domain Review

by Sandra Hunter

The girl watches the woman—green beret, yellow balloon pants, blue shoe, white shoe, ripped red scarf around one wrist—an eight-foot slab of wood across her back, bending her into prayer. The woman prays and curses across the road in front of cars stunned into stillness. When she reaches the curb, she unloads against a telephone pole the slab, nestling wood to wood. She breathes heavily, head down, drags her scarfed wrist across her face and neck, looks up to the sky, stretches her arms wide,

image detail from Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights 
- Public Domain Review 

by  Ian Power-Luetscher

A fucking gryphon got our mayor last night and now everybody in Pod24 is just losing their shit.

I hear the news on the community feed, during the “rise and shine” talk block. We’re in the kitchen and I’m pouring juice for Lydia when someone yells, “Kenny Staples got picked off by a gryphon outside of the bank. You can see it on securityCam8.” And then the feed goes bonkers, and I knock over the OJ carton.

diagram by Thure Brandt (1895), Public Domain Review

by Claire Donato

A woman and her ex-partner were together for ten years but never married, despite their  shared affinity for The New York Times Vows column, which appears on Sundays in the  newspaper’s Style section. Every weekend, they would read Vows aloud to one another— idyllic short stories of couples meeting, falling in love, getting engaged, and marrying,  presented sans red flags or conflict. Any real interpersonal turbulence was smoothed over to  the pitch of a PG-rated romantic comedy movie. They cut out their favorites and neatly 

by Grace Sikorski

At birth, possess the requisite primary sex organs—one uterus, normally shaped; two ovaries, holding a million or so eggs, which will die off at a rapid rate with every passing year of your life. Tick tock. Tick tock. Start the clock.

Wear scratchy dresses and aching head bows. Wail as they pierce your soft, soft lobes with diamond studs. Play with baby dolls, kitchen sets, plastic irons, bangles, and glitter. Bask before the light bulb of your Easy-Bake Oven. Serve Ken sugar-spice cookies as he drives along the coast in his convertible beach cruiser. 

by Drew Anderla

photo by Arry Yan on Unsplash 

There was a shitty bar I used to go in the East Village to that was demarcated only by a red neon rooster in the front window. Before 11, there would be disco music playing and red lights illuminating the space, but rather than dancing, or drinking, or even making eye contact, men would just pool around the perimeter of the room obsessively checking their cell phones. It was decidedly less like a bar at this early hour than it was like the DMV, with everyone anxiously waiting for their number to be called.