Category: The Last Word

Poetry: “Press Conference” by Gabriel Welsch

Lies are a special Esperanto.A language spoken with a set of the eyes,in a suit a few sizes too big, to makeroom for spasms of the heart’sremaining muscle, the tornslips of paper and innuendoadding up to a surrogate soul,the meaning holds its feet notin syllables but the telemetryamong the vicious. A podiumhas to prop the…
Fiction: “The Outlaw Truth” by Ron Gibson, Jr.

Leticia sits at her kitchen table, drinking coffee, curtains parted, watching the dirty dawn brightening between the bare limbs of the Rodneys’ elm next door. Light falls as harpoons and elevator shafts, laying out on her front lawn like butchered meat in a bazaar. A flock of ducks give in, charge toward ghosts over the…
“Exemplary, Emerging Visionary: Meri Sheen of Bohemian Dreams” (Fiction by Alexandria Morales)

Introduce yourself. Who are you, where are you from, and what are you doing now? People know me as Meri Sheen. I am a product of Hollywood, California. I’ve produced the fashion blog Bohemian Dreams since I was eleven years old, for eleven years now. My blog details my journey through Crossroads School, Grand Arts…
Poetry: Genève/Geneva Chao’s “Things I’ve Vomited Since Nov. 9, 2016 (a partial list)”

Things that I’ve vomited since Nov. 9, 2016include my breakfast on Nov. 10, 2016, whichwas the first day I attempted to eat breakfast,blobs of egg and beans that did not decideto become part of my cells; include threechocolate chip cookies that I baked beforeI realized my gorge was still rising, and whichcame out like play-dough,…
Two Poems by Katie Armstrong

Donald John Trump I expected this Samsonbombast. His boast aballoon, a hot warren riddle,and a big bag of duck down—and that’s not to mention how he’llpillow in the rubble. But who was it saidout of the strong, somethingsweet? I do know you said it was for me,notwithstanding endangered bees. Imagine, for a moment,the taste of…
Two Poems by Carolyn Zaikowski

Summons Where do they go after the stormWhere do they go after the tideWhere do they go after they’re lostWhere do they go after the sprawl Where do they go when there’s no bridgeWhere do they go when there’s no brideWhere do they go when there’s no stationWhere do they go when there’s a mountain…
Fiction: Rachel Lyon’s “How Did He Become This Way, and Where Will He Go from Here?”

Consider a boy who compulsively writes his name on things. Maybe he starts by writing on a bathroom wall, in a hidden place where no one can see. Maybe as an elementary-schooler he carves it into the wooden surfaces of desks in school. Maybe briefly, as a teenager, he takes up graffiti. To write his name all over the…
Poetry: Amy Forstadt’s “What My Son Learns”

My son learns to readin school. His teachers are calm and cold.They teach him words like contrarianbut not denier. Alleged not false.Alt-right not wrong. My son learns math. His teachers smilewhen they’re furious.They show him two plus twoequals five. And how divisionmatters most of all. My son learns art. His teachers give him all white…
Three Poems by Julie Rouse

The Direst I’ve been the same bad dream since I was eight.Still the body its interlocutors.Pierce my ear and listen to the crunch.Stick a needle underneath my thumb.Listen to mom and dad in the next room.Listen to the Bangles Egyptian.Piss in the corner, old enough to know.Dippy puppies hump each other for fun.Out in the…