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Soulmates by Kristen Williamson

I believe I died,
the day you told me
you wished you knew what true love was.




Kristen Williamson is currently a Graduate in English Literature and Creative Writing at Binghamton University In New York, where her fields of study include poetry,and fiction.

Street Art by Dee Dee who can be found at  @deedeewashere.
Photo by Adam Lawrence.

Glyders is a young psych-pop band from Chicago and "Every Boy and Girl" is their new 7" single on Tall Pat Records.

Morning by Carolyn Elias

The cool bed rocked 
In a gentle wave. 
You were happy with my scent:  
Sand, wood, smoke.   
Your hand coiled  
Like a spool of yarn 
Around my naked belly 
I lay unfurled.  
Catching your skin,
warm as summer rain.




Read Carolyn D. Elias’ poetry in the anthology: Turn Left at Nowhere. Her work has been published by Lunch Ticket, Apeiron Review, Sassafras Literary Magazine, East Jasmine Review, 1947, Slink Chunk Press, The Tower Journal, Digging Through the Fat, The Magnolia Review, Decades Review, S/tick, HelloHorror, The Altar Collective, The Gambler Magazine, Black Fox Literary Magazine, Ann Arbor Review, Crack the Spine, The Voices Project, Torrid Literature Journal, and Beakful. Look for Carolyn’s upcoming publications in The Poetry Storehouse, Poetica Magazine, Vending Machine Press, The Bookends Review, and Wilderness House Literary Review. Follow her on twitter @CarolynDElias. 

Street artist unknown.
Photo by Adam Lawrence.

Chicago's Santah is lead by the brother and sister team of Vivian and Stanton McConnell. "Talking In The Mist" is beautifully peaceful closing track to their recently released 2nd full-length album, Chico.  

deconstruction by Chris Barickman

up at six and on the site by seven hauling two
by fours or tearing down drywall with industrious
immigrants who spoke of only sex or carpentry

I was the “professor” with his brand new
and coveted tools forbidden to walk
the ceiling beams until
the plywood had been laid

diligent by day commended by the foreman
I put my wages up my nose
each night and lay until the early
hours pulse pattering face leaking

the house grew quickly as
I measured days by coffee
breaks and lunch time naps

when complete I left the town
and dealer in his Saab behind

I keep my tool belt undisturbed
on a hook in the cellar



Chris Barickman is an American singer/songwriter living in the Czech Republic.

Street Artist unknown.
Photo by Adam Lawrence.

Toronto-based grunge band, Dilly Dally's debut album, Sore, was released on October 9th by Partisan Records. 

Steadfast by Christopher Bowen

She woke beside the bed that morning returning to it for years after saying to him, “I'm tired of you doing this to yourself. Someday you will be as tired as I am.”
 
But she loved him more than anyone or just as much as love could give, the giving tree she was all limbs gone and just the stump to sit on with no leafs. He woke from that same bed in his dreams years later to describe in a way he couldn't then how cold and alone the world was without her.
 
“In death you may find me, but in life you have lost me.”
 
And people came and went beside the bed, shook hands and made deals over the commodity of the person, the soul and it's wealth. They barter. They steal. They cry, but never laugh. So with nothing left to give but ears, a waving tide of shaken wheat field miles away whispering her name over and over and over again, kingdom came. Bustle went beside itself of: life, people, and love.
 
Finally she said, “In your dreams you will remember me and the tree you once knew  that stood thirty yards up, some thirty yards away, some thirty years down the road, some thirty people in my bed and in my stead.”




Christopher Bowen is a mid-western chef and writer. He is the author of We Were Giants (Sunnyoutside Press, 2013)and blogs from Burning River.

Street art by SVEIK. 
Photo by Adam Lawrence. 

HINDS is a four-piece group from Madrid, and "Garden" is the latest single from their forthcoming debut album "Leave Me Alone" which will be released this January via Mom + Pop. Picture a '60's surf/garage rock vinyl album washed up on a beach in Spain in 1995 and four young girls found it and played it everyday through out their childhood. 



Author Note: This prose-poem originally appeared in the first volume of a two year annual I published with other authors through my blog Burning River and a listing on Duotrope almost ten years ago. Though many may take different things from this work, it has and always will be, about my grandmother. I dedicated my first chapbook from Sunnyoutside to her with the line 'For My Giving Tree' in 2013. It was her favorite book. But she was my best friend, to this day, and her death crippled me for a long time.

A Most Special Charles Bukowski Birthday Edition: The City of Angels as told by Bukoswki at the bar by Matt Micheli

I was young and at the bar. I had worked a long shift at the factory and would often come in this place to wind down, drink a couple drafts, whatever I could afford after a day’s work. This gal comes in. She has this bright beautiful red hair. She’s in a dress, really showing her legs, you know. She walks in. The bar stops. The few other scumbags who are drinking while the sun is still out stop what they’re doing and look at her. The mugs on these guys, all of them: lonely, worn… some more so than mine, some less.
    So she comes in and walks past me and I smell her perfume and I look at her. And she looks away, scared. I’m not a looker by any means so I’m used to that look. There are empty seats all around me but she takes a stool several spots down, I guess not wanting to be too close to this monster. She orders a drink, something red, something classy, you know those drinks sophisticated broads drink. I had four, maybe five dollars on me, so I offer to buy. I tell the barkeep, ‘Hey Jimmy, I got it.’ She looks at me, and man, she’s a looker, with that fiery red hair and the brightest blue eyes you’ve ever seen, a total gem. Then she looks away and insists to Jimmy that she can pay her own way. I say, ‘Look. I offered to buy your drink. Let me buy your drink.’ And she says, ‘Oh, thank you, but you really don’t have to.’ And she plays with her hair some and looks off uncomfortably. So I insist. I’ve always been persistent when I want something. Why start if you’re not going to finish? And she tells me ‘thank you’ and gives me a shy half-smile. I had only had a couple so I was still pretty good with my words. I said to her, ‘Sometimes the kindest thing you can do is to allow someone to be kind.’ She takes a drink and looks straight at me with those eyes. I have that sense. I know that I just broke through to her. And now it’s only a matter of time for ugly-old-me to wrap those gorgeous legs around me. I ask her, ‘Where you from?’ And she asks me, ‘Why do you ask that? I can’t be from here?’ And I say, ‘No. You can’t.’ Again, I had only had a couple so I was careful and aware and chose every word I said to her with pure precision. She tells me, ‘I’m from Atlanta.’ “Ol’ Hot-lanta,” I tell her and she laughs a little. ‘I’ve done my fair share in Hot-lanta.’ Really, I had never been to Hot-lanta.
    So the conversation was there but there was no movement. She was still way out of reach, several seats away. My beer was running low and I was out of money, so time was ticking. I said, ‘Why don’t you come down here, and I’ll allow you to kindly buy me a beer like the kind gentleman I am?’ That was it, my final attempt to try and close the deal. She sits there for a moment before standing up, picking her purse up off the bar, and walking in my direction. Imagine this bright red fireball with gams out of this world walking toward you. She sets her purse right down from me, orders two drafts from Jimmy, and slides onto the stool next to me. Jimmy brings over the drinks and I cheers to her and we clink our glasses and now I know she is mine. My face will be knee deep in that fiery crotch before too much longer.
    We carry on and laugh for a while about something, I don’t remember, and then she calls Jimmy to bring over two shots of whiskey. But she calls it bourbon like the lady she is. I can tell she’s buzzed because her cheeks are starting to match her hair. We take the shots. I look down at those fantastic legs, her dress riding higher than before, showing her magnificent thighs. We finish our beers and I ask her, ‘So Hot-lanta, where you going?’ My words are still there but beginning to lose ground. ‘The hotel I guess,’ she tells me and then asks, ‘You want to walk me?’ And with that, there’s no turning back for her, now. I say, ‘Yeah, I guess I can walk you. Wouldn’t want you to get lost in this City of Angels.’
    We get back to the hotel which is three or four blocks up from the bar. It’s one of those really nice hotels, clean, smelling good. I’m dirty from a long day at the factory and half-drunk so I feel a little out of place in such a classy joint, but that’s ok. We get onto the elevator. The button is pressed. The door closes. The elevator begins to ascend, dinging with every floor we pass. I look over at her and she smiles at me and then looks down and I’m hoping she hasn’t sobered up enough to realize her situation. We don’t say anything, and I picture those legs and where they lead to.
    The elevator dings again and we get off. She walks in front of me down the hall, swaying, her behind a beautiful piece of art. I’m no looker, you know, so I don’t often get a behind like that. So I’m excited and I’m beginning to bulge and I can’t wait to fuck her. I follow that behind into her room. The door closes behind me and she immediately attacks, kissing all over my mouth, aggressively. I rip the dress from her and she unbuttons my belt and we get at it. I mean, we really get at it. I worked that gal. I was proud of the job I did on her. I’ve got her bent over, over the bed, pushing the mattress halfway off the frame and onto the floor, and I’m slamming her as hard as I can and she’s loving it and moaning. And then she gets quiet, and I say, ‘What’s the matter?’ The next thing I know, she tenses up and constricts around my purple monster, and I keep going, and I’m about to blow. And then, she convulses, her insides tightening even more, and she hurls onto the bed, and I lose my load inside of her as I watch this chunky orange liquid spew from her mouth, covering the bed sheets. I’ve always hated the smell of vomit. Still inside of her, I gag and hurl all over her back. And then more comes. My vomit isn’t nearly as chunky as hers as it’s possible I hadn’t eaten in days. I’m just standing there, now, my cowardly cock between my legs, and she throws up again, that poor gal.
    I guess I fall asleep there because I wake up the next morning with the sun coming beaming through the blinds of this vomit-flooded hotel room that now stinks like absolute death. She  is awake and dressed and looking like she did when I first saw her. ‘I’ve got to go to a meeting,’ she says, ‘and then I have a flight to catch.’ She’s looking into the mirror putting in one earring at a time behind that hellish red hair of hers. I’ve never been one to overstay my welcome, so I get up and find my pants and slide them on and then look for my shoes only finding one. I put it on. I pick up my shirt off of the floor, there’s some orange vomit stains splattered on it, and place it over my head. I think I put it on backwards, I don’t know. Looking at her, I can’t believe such a beautiful creature graced me with her womanhood. I’m thinking as she looks at me that she is probably thinking that she can’t believe she allowed such a repulsive being to enter her, but oh well. People make mistakes. We all make mistakes.
    She walks me to the door, I’m hobbling in one shoe, off-balance. We walk down the hall, her beautiful behind swaying in front of me. We don’t say anything. We get onto the elevator. She presses the button and the doors close. The elevator dings with every floor we pass, breaking up the silence. Then it dings one last time and the doors open. We step out and walk toward the entrance. The sun is bright and getting brighter as we approach. We walk outside and she hooks a right but I need to go left, so I do. I turn back to see her beautiful behind swaying and those calves of hers. I want to call out to her and it’s then I realize I never got the ol’ gal’s name. I stand there watching her, the sun really coming down, her swaying behind getting smaller and smaller before finally disappearing, lost forever in this City of Angels.




Matt Micheli is the author of Smut, a sexy little horror novel recently released by Damnation Books. He has had multiple contributions to various literary magazines over the years--both fiction and non-fiction. When not sitting at his computer, sipping on a stiff cocktail, and writing words, he spends his days rolling around with his one-year old little girl and aggravating his beautiful wife.

Street Artist unknown.
Photo by Adam Lawrence.

Adult Mom is the work of Steph Knipe, and as Adult Mom she released her debut album, Momentary Lapse of Happily, via Tiny Engines on July 31st.

I Am Sorry Your Ovaries Are Falling Out by A.J. Huffman

and that mine are growing gills, both as result  

of the nuclear disasters that are our lives. Yours 

from being pulled by the residual ghost-hands of family  
and husband’s past. Mine from the continual 
drippings of sky, probably draining from heaven’s 
pools. It’s summer and too hot for either of us  
to think clearly, so we just tape our vaginas tight, 
sign them closed for repair, and scurry off to clean  
or cure whatever mess is inevitably waiting  
in next hour’s arms.
 


A.J. Huffman has published eleven solo chapbooks and one joint chapbook through various small presses. Her new poetry collections, Another Blood Jet (Eldritch Press) and A Few Bullets Short of Home (mgv2>publishing) are now available from their respective publishers. She has two additional poetry collections forthcoming: Degeneration from Pink Girl Ink, and A Bizarre Burning of Bees from Transcendent Zero Press. She is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, and has published over 2200 poems in various national and international journals, including Labletter, The James Dickey Review, Bone Orchard, EgoPHobia, and Kritya. She is also the founding editor of Kind of a Hurricane Press. 

This Zine Will Change Your Life previously published Necromantics by A.J. Huffman. Check it out.

Street artist unknown.
Photo by Adam Lawrence.

"Been So Long" is the lead single from the new album by the New York trio Win Win (Arts & Crafts, June 2015).

Dungeon Dragon Owner’s Manual by Jennifer Porter

So, your gourmet apricot jam is just not lasting as long as it used to and you know you left two bottles of IPA in the fridge but now they’re gone. You hear ghostly footprints through the house, especially between the hours of 2 a.m. and 5 a.m. There are clothes in the dryer, and they’re not yours. An intrepid explorer, you make your way into the household crypt and, lo and behold, curled into a corner with smoke exuding from his nostrils that smells strikingly of Gummi worms, is your very own dungeon dragon.

Don’t panic! The first step in dungeon dragon removal is to own up to his presence in your life. As a New Age parent this can be the most difficult step. This act of denial can drag on until your dragon appears one day to rummage through your cupboard for jalapeño-flavored nacho chips and you notice he is balding and growing a paunch.

First, identify which sort of dragon you possess.

One sort can’t decide what he wants to be when he grows up despite having been grown-up for a number of years. He refuses to declare a major. This is the dragon New Age parents have the most difficulty extricating from the basement. They feel sorry for him because he works hard at his minimum wage job and the economy does suck. He’s helpful around the house, washes his own clothes and often yours too, pays his bills (except lair rent) and is generally invisible.

The other sort earned a degree in useless but culturally-important information. This Bachelor of Forget Adulthood graduate is finely versed in the art of poetry or ceramics or maybe even theater. He entrances the ladies with his flighty displays of wing-power, enchanting even his parents, thrilled with their progeny until they all hop into the same car at the end of the evening’s performance and drive to the same house as they have been, for the last twenty-nine years.

I know what you’re asking yourself. Why didn’t you have a come to Jesus talk with your dragon when he was bright-eyed and chomping at the bit, fresh out of high school, ready to take on the world with his flame-throwing prowess? Instead of a dungeon dragon, he could’ve been an accountant, a computer software programmer, even a teacher; why, he could’ve been an engineer, as tight-cheeked as engineers are. Instead of hiding in his lair all the live-long day, he could have had a decent job.

Some nearly useless pieces of advice in the eternal war against dragonitis:

No allowance! Do not give your dragon money. They cannot hide in their lairs forever and without a car, cannot go clubbing with other dungeon dragons. Clubbing is a powerful force; use it to your advantage. Simply explain that if he wants to hang with Betsey, he’s going to have to take that minimum-wage job at McDonald’s.

After several months of working a mindless, greasy, low-wage job, your dungeon dragon will wake up and yearn to be a highly-qualified professional. You must, however, strike when this iron gets hot. Once the dragon gets acclimated to the blue-collar life, he has everything he needs to be content in his lair without the full load of responsibilities that come with owning his own castle. Lurking in his dungeon is far easier than ruling the kingdom.

No feeding! Do not feed your dragon. Home-cooked meals are to these dragons what rotting carcasses in the desert sun are to vultures. Ramen noodles, cardboard-flavored pizza, and powdery-orange mac and cheese can wear the soul so thin, your dragon may just decide to become an electrical engineer after all.

Frequently buy expensive electronic devices that your dragon cannot afford (make sure you point this out) and make him teach you how to work them. Spend the entire teaching-session with a confused expression on your face and mess up the device a number of times, which he will have to fix and show you again. Mumble about having to buy more Depends and how much money he will save you when his father needs in-home care due to a chronic loosening of the bowels.

Finally, and most importantly, stop telling your dungeon dragon how much you love him. You don’t have to be his cheerleader, his soft place to land, his back-up plan. So what if your own cruel and heartless parents threw you to the Orcs when you were eighteen. So, you had to pay for your own college, live in a seven-hundred square foot mobile tornado trap, and work full-time in a hydraulic hose factory, shoving hoses in a crimping machine all day. Hey, at least you can equip your castle with the latest and greatest electronic devices.

Remember, the last thing you want in your basement is a dungeon dragon.




Jennifer Porter lives in metropolitan-Detroit. Her fiction has appeared in journals such as Ray’s Road Review, The Dos Passos Review, Jet Fuel Review, Sling Magazine and Apeiron Review. A memoir essay recently appeared in Revolution John. She earned her MFA at the Bennington Writing Seminars. 

Street art by London Kaye.
Photo by Adam Lawrence.

Montreal-based TOPS released their sophomore album in April 2015. "Sleeptalker" is perfect amounts sleepy and spooky. 

Clogged Sink by Matt Rowan

Then when we heard the scream come up the pipe and through the drain, my wife and I knew we weren’t dealing with an ordinary clogged sink. We’d attempted to pour scalding hot water down the drain just seconds before. But it bubbled and steamed stagnantly in the basin, which was worrisome. It had always done the trick before.

I remembered the last time we’d had to do something like this, pouring the boiling water and hearing the sound of that screechy, stridulous voice saying something like, “I’ll be back!” The voice growing fainter as the clog itself was presumably dislodged and sent further and further back down the pipe, gone and away, to one of any number of horrible and richly deserved fates. 

And now it was back. It was screaming loud, too loud, always too loud. And it was not budging. It had gotten stronger, bigger maybe. More capable of clogging.

All of this taught me a lot about how clogs in pipes form. Some of the nastiest clogs, anyway. They form because they’re pure evil incarnate and they desire existence as clogs. That’s it. There’s not much else to them.

I wouldn’t give in to its belligerence, a response quite the opposite of my wife’s, who immediately relented to its reign of terror, choosing to avoid the sink and that bathroom. She asked that I call a plumber, too, but I refused. I was insistent I handle the clog myself.

“Hey clog!” I taunted down the pipe, “I’ve got something for you.” I poured a superheated drum of an industrial-strength plumbing liquid down the drain. I wore a gas mask, because the noxious fumes the liquid gave off were obviously pretty toxic.

The clog was unmoved. “You think you can hurt me? I’m clog of all clogs, so no, sir, you cannot.” Depressing but apparently true. The random things I sent down my drain did nothing to ease the clog. The random things I sent perhaps only made the clog stronger, furthering the clogging power of the clog.

So I sent down horrible things: tarantulas of various sizes, mostly. They scare me and make me scream. I thought they’d scare the clog. I was wrong. Clog was a heaving mass of live tarantulas stuck to the already collected filth. I’d miscalculated. I’d made life easier for the clog, fed it, in a manner of speaking.

I continued to instigate fights with Clog, telling it, from my safe distance, I wasn’t afraid. My wife soon left me. She’d said something about my deserving Clog, or “the clog in the bathroom sink’s drain” as though it were just any clog.

Clog would gurgle so little at times that it almost convinced me it had finally been dislodged, voluntarily or not. Then I’d turn on the water and the drain would bubble and belch, as usual. And there I’d be, left to watch as its derisive laughter rippled the water in the sink.

I had a hunch that if I could somehow coax Clog out of the drain then there had to be some means of sending it off into the world to be another person’s problem, finally. I knew that in the drain Clog had all the power. Out of the drain it was on uneven footing, a world with plenty of space to move.

I had it in mind that I could offend it from its spot in the pipes and so desiring to make me stop however it could, it would emerge from the drain to confront me.

“You are a loutish clog indeed, Clog! Loutish and certainly repellent. Repugnant, even!” I was not a practiced bully, but I found it in my heart to come up with words I thought might upset Clog.

“I’m taking offense,” Clog said. Clog said it could only abide my words for so long before it had to take action, to defend itself and its sense of dignity. My plan was working.

“Fine! Take some form of action! I encourage it and am unimpressed by the prospect of what you might do!” I shouted, laughing nastily.

“All right,” it spat, and then I heard the gurgle. It was slithering upward as fast as it was able, but I was ready.

“Wait, no, I’m not ready for you.” I said, lying to Clog as I clasped the opening of an old pillowcase around the drain.

“Yerrrrrrrggggghhhh!” it shouted as it flew from the drain into an old pillowcase, saturating the pillowcase with black liquid but still becoming, in effect, trapped. It almost bested me by causing the pillowcase to overflow, but I was too quick for it. I tied the end of the pillowcase off and threw Clog into a dumpster, happy for that to be the end.

I was disappointed that Clog reappeared some nights later. It started when I heard a knock at my door. I answered and standing before me was very obviously Clog, dressed to look like a door-to-door salesman. Clog wore a black fedora. It’d cut eye holes into the pillowcase somehow, still sloppy and greenish. The eyes were black, something putrid visible in them. Spiders were crawling around in the pillowcase, making it undulate disconcertingly. It’d drawn on other features: a mouth, a nose, ears and again I was impressed by its dexterity. Clog’s pillowcase was perched upon an old coat rack, which it had draped in a tattered, filthy trench coat, which perhaps at one time belonged to a street person who’d moved on to less aggressively rank attire. When at last I got the chance to observe Clog walk, it seemed to swing and tilt the coat rack from side to side, coming close to tipping over every so often.

“I was wondering if I could have a moment of your time,” Clog said. “I’m selling things of great value at minimum cost. I’d like to sell one of these things to you, but first I’d appreciate it if you’d let me inside to use your bathroom.”

“No,” I said, slamming the door. I vomited all over my perfectly clean carpet, though it was a small price to pay to finally be rid of Clog, to have won the day.

I see Clog wandering the streets from time to time, looking for confined spaces to slither into and obstruct, like between dumpsters and the buildings they’re set against.

My wife has never returned.




Matt Rowan lives in Chicago, IL, with his wife and two chihuahuas. He co-edits Untoward Magazine and serves as fiction editor of ACM: Another Chicago Magazine. He’s author of two story collections, the recently published Big Venerable (CCLaP, 2015) and Why God Why (Love Symbol Press, 2013). His fiction has been published in mojo journal, Pear Noir!, Necessary Fiction, elsewhere.

This Zine Will Change Your Life previously published Bad Baby by Matt Rowan. Check it out.

Street artist unknown.
Photo by Adam Lawrence.

Pale Honey is a charming dream-pop duo from Gothenburg, Sweden, and they released their self-titled debut LP in May of 2015.

Horizon by Cyn Vargas

The forty rays were like balloons on the wall each in succession holding a human baby at every week of development. The fluid in them waved, sun from the window made the fetuses glow.
    The room had ten rows with five glass stools each. Women in thin gowns sat, their hands on their laps, the carpet tickled their toes.
    All the women saw the same forty rays, but the fetuses were different depending on the woman. The red haired woman in the back saw fair babies. The brown skinned woman in the third row saw her fetus with mocha skin like it had just been tanning.
    The woman with the darkest hair and lightest eyes sat in the last seat in the first row. She stared at the wall with the forty rays that protruded like those 3D stickers she had as a child.
    She saw each ray hold not one, but two babies. Each connected to its own sac, swaying back and forth, and felt their heartbeats right in her belly button.
Ray #26 fetuses’ opened their eyes.
    A tiny door was to the left. The women watched it opened when a bell rang summoning a specific woman. Flowers sprouted in between the requested woman’s toes. The sweet scent twisted around the waiting women.
   The summoned woman slithered off the stool and slid along her stomach to the tiny door using her toes to push her forward. Her head disappeared first then her body turned to the side, so her shoulders could fit. Once her waist reached the doorframe, she was back on her stomach. The women watched until the other side plucked the last of her and when the door slammed all forty babies vibrated inside the rays.
    The room was once again silent. All the women stared at the rays. Some cried, tears on their lips. The woman with the darkest hair and lightest eyes watched her two babies.
    Ray 1, they were the size of peas.
    Ray 12, they swam. Swirls formed on their fingertips. Their lungs still developing like pouring dough into a pan that’s not yet filled.
    The bell sounded again. The woman in the fourth row with blonde curls slid off her seat like spilled water to the door. All the women’s heads turned and watched her. The babies in the rays, who could see, watched her. All the women seemed to applaud with their eyelashes, waiting for their turn.
    The woman with the darkest hair and lightest eyes didn’t turn this time. Her mind ached. The room spun. Her body shook as if just pulled out of snow. The stool became hot. She glanced down, red tissue escaped. Then her eyes met Ray 36. 
    That’s when she noticed. Drops of fluid splashing from a tear on top of the ray. The babies tried to swim. Twenty fingers pressed against the bubble. The baby with the dark hair moved its mouth like a fish. The baby with the light eyes pushed at the bubble. A puddle formed underneath turning the carpet a bright red. The fluid decreased. The top of the bubble curled like the pages in an old book. Their heartbeats like a million running horses trampling her body.
    The blood traced its ways down her legs, curving of her toes. She saw no rays after 36. Just four empty spaces where they used to be.
    She went to scream for the bell to ring, but nothing escaped. The silent room filled with her breathing. The air clouded around her. Her dark hair now scattered with white strands like misplaced floss, her light eyes red with thin squiggly lines. She saw the women staring at their own visions of the rays. The two seats that were empty now filled with new women.
     She stirred in her seat till she pushed herself off before the bell was ready for her. The woman landed hard on her knees. The wall within her reach, but the more she inched, the more the blood flowed between her legs.
    In Ray 36, the baby with the light eyes flipped upside down, so that it curled itself enough to be fully submerged in liquid. The fluid evaporated from the invading air. The top of the dark haired baby’s head was exposed and began to wrinkle.
    The bell rang. The door opened. A dark woman made her way off the stool. She glided on the floor passed the woman as though she wasn’t there. The blood she went over didn’t smear on her. The two women like snakes escaping in different directions. The rest of the women watched the door as the dark woman disappeared on the other side.
    The woman finally made her way to the wall. Her hands sticky from the blood, she pulled herself up. Her eyes leveled with the bottom of the bubble. The light-eyed baby, upside down, pushed its face to her and she traced it feeling the contours of it through the elastic thick film then the feet of the dark-haired baby kicked. The liquid now below the rim of the lids, the eyes now white.
    She yanked her hands from the wall, layers of skin hung like twigs. She tried to push some liquid from the bottom of the bubble up like a tube of toothpaste, but it only splashed the shriveled head and eyes with few drops.
    The scent of flowers filled the room as the liquid disappeared, the baby that had her dark hair rounded its mouth for its last gasp. She traced its feet as it shrunk, floating on its side, the other baby underneath covering its face.
    The bell rang again. Flowers sprouted, thorns sliced between her toes. The dark haired baby was gone. When the bubble burst, she caught her other baby in her arms, both falling into the soaked carpet. She crawled covering its head as she turned to the side to fit her shoulders through the door.




Cyn Vargas' short story collection, On The Way, was recently published by Curbside Splendor Publishing. She is the recipient of a Ragdale Fellowship and the  Guild Literary Complex Prose Award in Fiction. She was named one of Guild's Literary Complex's 25 Writers to Watch and has received two top citations in Glimmer Train's Short Story Award for New Writers contests. She is a company member of the award-winning storytelling organization 2nd Story. Her work has appeared in Chicago Reader Fiction Issue, Word Riot, Hypertext Magazine and elsewhere.

This Zine Will Change Your Life previously published So It Went by Cyn Vargas. Check it out.

Street artist unknown.
Photo by Adam Lawrence.

NixonLove is lo-fi bedroom rock of Chicago's Liz-E Gavillet. She is currently signed to Good Bear Records and released her latest EP, Sweat Heart, earlier this Spring. 

we pray to Mary Magdalene by Jessica Robinson

i.
at war with the moths, we
turn off the lights
so they think we’re not home

look at your reflection
she looks like she’s in grade five
doesn’t she make you want to
hit her

grade ten you is standing
in the middle of the road
you think she might get hit by a
car
she’s too high
she doesn’t care she doesn’t care

ii.
in line at the drive through
the people on the radio
are talking about me
again




Jessica Robinson is a young Canadian writer based in “The City Above Toronto,” who spends her time watching people and trying to do them justice on paper. She has had poetry published with Bitterzoet Magazine, The Furious Gazelle, and Room Magazine, and is currently a contributor for The Lambda, the Laurentian University newspaper. You can find her on Twitter @hey_jeska.

Street art by Cosbe.
Photo by Adam Lawrence.

Chicago-based indie crooner Jimmy Whisper is preparing to release his debut LP, Summer In Pain, this week via Moniker Records. 

santa rosa / larkfield by bl pawelek

you have your slow move
driving and grinding
pushing it all in front of you
damage and life and weight

the sun far off and cold
the wind slow and quiet
the ocean too far away

and then you stopped
and retreated
traveled north leaving flat lands
leaving waste and me

providence sat with the wine
fading away and silent until
i returned to the lakes



Right now, bl pawelek is hiking in the Minnesota Woods thinking of you, glaciers and the quickly setting sun. He remembers Santa Rosa and Larkfield, and thanks the local wineries for not getting mad when he ran through their fields eating grapes along the way.

This Zine Will Change Your Life previously published when i could not smile by bl pawelek. Check it out.

Street art by Dee Dee.
Photo by Adam Lawrence.

Aero Flynn (aka Josh Scott) will be releasing his self-titled debut album on March 10th via Ooh La La Records. Scott comes from the former Eau Claire, WI scene that spawned Bon Iver and Megafuan among other bands. He co-produced this album with Justin Vernon.

Alcoholics are considered mentally weak people. To be one means you have spanned the label of social outcasts that can’t self-manage. By Ally Malinenko

After a week off, 
staying home, 
I walk around the apartment,  
picking up wine bottles, 
dotting the floor like bowling pins.  

There are beer bottles too  
and two empty plastic jugs 
from cheap scotch.  

I gather them up,  
to bring downstairs for recycling,  
the bag clanking  
the sweet acrid smell of red wine  
and the chalky scent of beer  
dotting my fingertips and filling the elevator.  

As the doors close 
I vow that next week  
when we get back to work  
I’ll be better.  

Because being better is what we do as Americans.  
Because this is clearly 
too much, 
too much fun,  
too much debauchery  
too much drinking.  

So I promise that next week, 
when I need to get up early  
and walk to work and function  
as a grown up,  
I’ll bring the bottles down  
at least once a day 
instead of letting them collect  
like I did this time.



Ally Malinenko is the author of The Wanting Bone (Six Gallery Press), Lizzy Speare and the Cursed Tomb (Antenna books) and This Is Sarah (BookFish Books). She currently lives in the part of Brooklyn that was voted to have the best halal truck and can be at @allymalinenko blathering on about Doctor Who.

This Zine Will Change Your Life previously published Garage Sale by Ally Malinenko. Check it out.

Street art by Kashink. 
Photo by Adam Lawrence. 

Small Houses is the work Flint, MI native Jeremy Quentin. This track comes from his forthcoming album Still Talk which will be released on Feb. 10th via The Cottage Recording Co.

[fare-well, darling: to h] by Yuan Changming

On that evening, as our titanic  
Finally began to sink, how I desperately  
Combed our whole boat  
To find you the only lifebuoy aboard!

But when I returned empty-handed
I saw you struggling fiercely In the water of cold night
Already far beyond my reach

[With the ring hidden beside your arm]



Yuan Changming, 8-time Pushcart nominee and author of 4 poetry chapbooks (including Mindscaping [2014]), is the world's most widely published poetry author who speaks Mandarin but writes English. Growing up in an impoverished village, Yuan began to learn English in Shanghai at 19 and authored several monographs on translation before leaving China as an international student. With a PhD in English, Yuan currently tutors and co-edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Qing Yuan in Vancouver; his poetry has appeared in Best Canadian Poetry (2009,12,14), BestNewPoemsOnline, Threepenny Review and 959 other literary publications across 31 countries.

Street by Russell King and Matt Siren.
Photo by Adam Lawrence.

Populous (aka Andrea Mangia) is a Bombay based producer who released his first album in six years, Night Safari (Bad Panda Records) earlier this Fall.

30 Brassieres by Donna Kaz

I find them stacked in piles,
a smooth cup nesting into its pair,
that pair sinking
into the one underneath.
Sweetly positioned rows of support
embellished with tiny satin bows and seed pearls;
adjustable straps,
hidden underwires.

Once crooked fingers
slipped each over
wrinkled shoulders,
slowly fastened hooks and eyes,
held your softness
in place.

Swept up and into a corrugated box,
I place the box in the trunk of your Lexus,
drive to the Goodwill on Manatee Avenue,
dump it out on top of a mound
of lime green stretch pants and bedazzled
white tank tops stained
with cocktail sauce, smelling
of spoiled milk.

At the last minute
I reach back to rescue one.

Back at your boxed up condo
I shove it into the outside
pocket of my carry-on, fly it north
where I stuff it
in the back of my own bureau drawer, a tangled mess
of twisted pantyhose, single socks, high cut briefs,
a handful of bras.

Every morning
I grope around in that drawer -




Donna Kaz's poems have been published in Lilith, Trivia, Western Press Books and Step Away Magazine (Pushcart Prize nomination 2013). She is the recipient of residency fellowships from Yaddo, Djerassi, Blue Mountain, Ucross, Wurlitzer and CAP21. Her nonfiction essays have appeared in The Dramatist, Ful Art magazine, Girl Drive Blog, Gender Across Borders and the Women’s Studies Quarterly. She resides in New York City where she is currently working on a memoir. Donna can be found on Twitter at @donnakaz.

Street art by This Is Awkward.
Photo by Adam Lawrence.

Stranger Cat is the duo of Cat Martino and Sven Britt. "Sirens" is the b-side of their first single and a precursor of what is to come on their debut album "In The Wilderness" coming this Spring via Joyful Noise Recordings.   

Reincorporating by Matthew Guerrucky

Every time Daniel performed before a crowd (and by his count, tonight would be his 147th performance) he felt just as nervous as he had his first time. By the time he hit the stage with Improv Incorporated, he had been taking their beginners classes for six months. He loved the feeling that he and his classmates were creating moments that had never existed before and would never exist again, but when he faced his first audience that euphoria had been eclipsed by bald terror. His fellow performers realized he had frozen and stopped addressing him. He spent the next fifteen minutes staring into the crowd, unblinking. When the scene was over his teammates dragged him offstage. It was the most humiliating moment of his life, and one that he replayed in his mind as he stood backstage waiting to go on.

He told himself that if he didn't have to partner with Tyler tonight he'd be less anxious. Tyler was, by far, the quickest member of Improv Incorporated, and the only member of the troupe that anybody outside of Cleveland had ever heard of. The summer before he had taken a trip to New York to audition for Saturday Night Live. He didn't make the final cut, but he got close—he even got to meet with Lorne Michaels alone in his office, a tale that grew grander with each drunken retelling. Daniel knew he had to be his best tonight with Tyler next to him soaking in all the audience's love.

"You're on in five minutes," Dave, the scruffy stage manager told him.
"Thanks," Daniel said. "You have haven't seen Tyler anywhere, have you?"
Dave jerked his thumb in the direction of the dressing room. "He's having a lover's quarrel with his piece of the week."
Daniel turned where he'd pointed and there was Tyler, bellowing at a gaunt, stringy-haired teenager with hollow eyes. Daniel couldn't hear the argument, but it seemed one-sided. The girl said nothing, just stared at Tyler with an unsettling intensity. Daniel thought for a moment that he had seen her before, but the last girl he'd seen Tyler with was a stunning red-head full of life.
Tyler noticed Daniel watching him and walked over. He peeked out of the side curtain and watched the audience filing into their seats.
"What's it looking like out there?" he asked Daniel, without a hello.
"Pretty full house tonight. I wish we weren't up first. I'd rather know what kind of crowd we're working with before we get out there."
"Crowds are all the same," Tyler said with professorial disdain, "it's you, my friend, who needs to change."
"You've never felt pressure being the first one out there?"
"Can't say as I have," Tyler said. "Never been afraid to break a cherry." He gave Daniel a sickening wink and guided the girl into the dressing room. Tyler emerged five minutes later, dizzy and irritable. Five minutes after that, they were onstage.
"Good evening ladies, and gentlemen, we are Improv Incorporated," he said to polite applause. "My name is Daniel Smith and this is my partner, Tyler Bettinger."
There was a long applause break after he announced Tyler. Daniel gritted his teeth, but clapped along. Tyler didn't seem to notice. After the applause had died down, Daniel continued.
"You know how this works, I'm sure, all we need is a suggestion. Let's start with a place. It can be any place at all, anywhere, anytime."
Daniel folded his hands together as if in prayer and scanned the faces in front of him. Nobody spoke up. Daniel turned to Tyler for help, Tyler stood at the back of the stage, staring ahead in blank terror. Daniel wondered if he had looked the same the night of his first performance. He turned back to the crowd for their suggestions.
"Anybody?" Daniel probed.
“Golf course!" said a deep voice from the back of the room.
"Submarine!" said another voice.
"Locker room!"
"The Old West!"
Daniel mimed listening with his hand behind his ear and said "Okay, I heard dentist's office. Here we go!"
He mimed opening and shutting a door and walked to where Tyler stood.
"Good morning, sir. Please have a seat in the chair. I'm Doctor Fang, and I'll be helping you today."
Tyler broke his blank stare to look at Daniel. He uttered a low, menacing grunt like a cavemen in an old B-movie. Daniel picked up the reference and asked, "So, Mister, Ugg, what is it that brings you in today?"
Tyler growled again, turned toward the audience, and bared his teeth. Daniel rolled his eyes. This was typical Tyler—going with his own ideas and leaving no anchor for his partner. All of this ridiculous grandstanding, Daniel thought, and still Tyler was the one that everyone wanted to get drinks with after class.
"Well," Daniel continued, "there seems to be some language barrier here. Let me see if I can tell what your problem is."
He reached for Tyler's mouth. Tyler screamed and smacked his hand away. The audience laughed.
Daniel cradled his hand in a tender, exaggerated gesture, for the audience’s benefit—but the Tyler had surprised him with his strength. 
"I've seen this before," he said, "a diet of rocks and mammoth meat is hard on the gums. I promise to be more cautious, but I will have to get in that mouth of yours. If you please, say ah."
Daniel opened his mouth and said "ahhhhhh" in a high tone. He hoped that Tyler would maintain his silence to play up the contrast. He did, and the audience chuckled.
"No, sir, like this—ahhhhh ... ," Daniel said, drawing out the last syllable for several seconds as Tyler stood silent. When he stopped, Tyler let out a menacing hiss, the most terrifying sound Daniel had ever heard. He wasn't sure what kind of avant-garde nonsense Tyler was trying to pull, but it was dying.

He approached Tyler again and lowered his jaw wide. Tyler opened his mouth, too. His breath smelled like the inside of a dumpster. Daniel squinted in disgust. Okay, fine, he thought. You get all the friends, you get all the girls, but you're not going to upstage me like this. Not tonight.

Daniel stared into Tyler's eyes and, as he did, he felt his legs weaken. Soon he was unaware of the crowd or the routine. He was in a long, dark hallway. Running. Something was chasing him—but what?

He heard a scream in the distance, then many screams. He blinked and looked away from Tyler to the horrified audience. Some were hiding their faces, some stared in disbelief, and others fell out of their chairs with laughter. Daniel noticed that the front row patrons were covered in a thick, red fluid. Blood, he supposed, but from where?

He felt a tapping on his side and turned in its direction. There was Tyler, swinging what appeared to be a human arm at him. Funny, Daniel thought, we didn't have any prop work planned for tonight. 

Then he looked down at his side and realized that the arm Tyler was beating him with had once been attached to his own body.

Daniel shook his head. He was dizzy. His eyes struggled to focus. He tried to remember if they'd rehearsed this. The crowd was abuzz with shock and laughter, a wave of attention that lapped over Daniel like a gentle surf. They loved it. They loved him.

Tyler turned toward the laughter and roared at the audience, then took Daniel's arm in his mouth and nuzzled at the flesh, tearing into the thin skin of Daniel's wrist with his powerful jaws. When he looked up at the crowd again thin strings of tendon were stuck between his teeth, a sight that set off another wave of laughter.

Daniel waved his remaining hand, and then used it to take a theatrical bow. The crowd gave him a standing ovation as he staggered backstage. Once in the wings he leaned against the wall. 

He heard the crowd continue to cheer, then a sound more like screaming. I'll have to thank Tyler once he gets back here, he thought. I've never had a standing ovation before. He looked down at his arm. I should get this checked out first, he thought, but it doesn't feel so bad anymore.

Dave approached him with a grin and said, "Hey, man, they ate that shit up—how did you guys manage—" He trailed off, staring at the blood and tendons pulsating in Daniel's wound. "Jesus Christ,” he said, “that's not fake, is it?"
Daniel tried to answer, but his voice was gone. All that came out was a low hiss. Dave backed away from him.
"I'm going to get a doctor for you, okay?" Dave said, then turned and ran.

Daniel watched as he sped away. The screams behind the curtain grew more frantic. That Dave, he's a great guy, Daniel thought. Super smart, too. Really big brain on that guy.




Matthew Guerruckey is the founding editor of the online literary magazine Drunk Monkeys, and a fiction writer. His short fiction has previously appeared in The Doctor TJ Eckleburg Review, Connotation Press, Bartleby Snopes, Cease Cows, and The Weekenders Magazine. Matthew lives in North Hollywood with his wife, poet SC Stuckey, and their cats Lennon and Harrison. He is working on his first novel. 

Street artist unknown.
Photo by Adam Lawrence.

Oakland's Go Dark is a dark and spooky duo releasing their free debut EP, Bitch Sword, on Halloween.