by Michelle Hulan

photo by Tala Dursun Marko on Unsplash

When I was young, my future
was as sure as static on the screen.

There were backs arching. A woman’s hand
reaching past shadows. Torsos

tethered to no discernable plot. I felt my way
toward desire blindfolded in a hum

of bees. Sometimes I bang my fists against sheet metal
just to hear its sound hit walls and return as echo—

My past always has the last word,
but I never met a future I didn’t like.

By Sera Gamble

photo by Huie Dinwiddie on Pexels

I.

he makes a fist.

my world splits:

the truth / the thing

   that makes it stop.

lying is easy

as slipping

into a silk coat.

but we become

what we practice.

who was he before

his father?

By Philip Jason

photo by Adam Gonzales

Schrodinger said the cat exists in the space
between two states, but there is a third state
where you open the box and find only yourself
-Plato

The butterfly in October was not supposed to be there.
In October, the butterflies
live in our dreams. Nonetheless, I saw it
where it was, and decided I’d lost the taste
for whining about the human condition.

By Tamas Dobozy

photo by Karl Griffiths on Pexel

Your locket terrified me as a child. You were an 
old lady then. It swung back and forth as you
bent, pouring tea, knocking against your
breastbone below where your dress, always red,
parted at the neck. I kept asking you to open it,
and you did, out of tiredness. Open it again,
please. Open it again. I had no actual desire to
see the photograph inside. There was nothing
special about it,