Category: The Last Word

“The Autolycus Syndrome,” flash fiction by Jay Merill

Giles lived for dressing up in quirky costumes and pointing people in the wrong direction. Trickery was his forte. He was all wolf at heart but smiled at everyone with the sweetness of a curly sheep. Baaa. The snag was all his feats were imaginary and more than anything he wanted real. He wanted real…
“Everything Was Cliché and Nothing Hurt,” an essay by Alaina Symanovich

Paint this scene: imbue it with optimistic lighting à la Glee and the stench of yesterday’s cafeteria surprise à la every public high school in America: fill in any gaps with some universal notion of teenage angst and low-grade depression. This particular story unfolds in Smalltown, Florida, a wart on the pallid swampland; maybe it…
Poetry: “when i say fuck men” by Mandy Shunnarah

when i say fuck meni don’t mean the verbthat opens legsdrops pantscommands sex i mean the onethat dismisses menas worthlessthe verb that saysi’m donei’m outyou have nothing to offer me no one crosses my thresholdbut whom i allowthis space—my space—is barred to you when i say fuck menwhat i mean isi’m tiredwearyexhausted and exasperatedi don’t…
Six Poems from Oliver Baez Bendorf’s The Gospel According to X

Flicker of orange outside the window. Day breaks into pieces. What man feels man enough? Twinge while the oil seeps in. Is not for chit chat. He brought himself forth and called himself X. That is the good news. Is this still the good news? Scientists believe all mammals dream. I believe in the necessity…
“repeat means repeat means,” a poem by Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach

repeat means repeat means stop writing the same poemabout guns and cities and deadchildren who aren’t yours when there’s been so much rainthe sewers are spitting backwater writing the same poem you wander unpaved streetslooking for your son’s lost galoshas children who aren’t yours pretend to hold guns in his classroomaim crayons and legos and…
Four Fictions from Debra Di Blasi’s Today Is the Day That Will Matter: Oral Histories from the New America #AlternativeFictions

Her Father, Reclining The daughter must wait on him hand and foot. Her hand flutters at the foot of his bed where he is reclining naked, exposed, his pebbly ass facing her each time she enters the room with a gold tray of milk and Nutella and salt-free butter sandwiches fried in butter. He loves…
Fiction: “1,000 Ghosts” by Diana Clark

He insists on lying down. Dr. Greenwood tells him, “That’s only in the movies, the couch part; you’re more than welcome to sit up,” but then she remembers how much he loves movies, his Air Force One comment from 2015, remembers Harrison Ford in his interview on Studio 10, and decides not to push the…
Flash Nonfiction: “Sportsball Commentary” by Ann Petroliunas

Pay attention, ref! The men in this basement have proven 1476 times that they possess the vocabulary to be outraged. The men in this basement scream obscenities at toy figurines on television screens sitting next to women who have other reasons for screaming. Our cries of outrage sound the same to this soccer game. The…
Poetry: “here, in my body” by Bianca Phipps

the process of getting an IUD wasin no waywhat I would call fun I can only describe it as reverse birth, except!with something very cold & metal & a fraction of the size of a human baby. (don’t let this be misleading.something the fraction of the size of a human babydoes not make it less…