The Northeast | JOYLAND

Kindling

Kerry Cullen -

I am collecting mothers. Mothers with loose blonde hair and glossy mouths, mothers with dark bobs and plum lipstick and freckles scattered across pale faces, mothers...

Far Gone Conclusions

Hilary Leichter -

On the last night of the revolution someone somewhere was making soup, and for them, the people who ate the soup, that was the end...

Phantom Vibrate

Clare Sestanovich -

He picked up his daughter at the winter formal. Grace was in the seventh grade, and for weeks had been gnawing the skin around her...

Crumbs

Melissa Ragsly -

Henrik entered the close green environs of his ground-floor unit’s yard with a Balloon Time helium tank kit jacked up on his good shoulder. He...

Divina

Jennifer Driscoll -

Not much time passed—I can’t remember if it was weeks or months—between when Alan bought the puppies and when he turned me out on a...

Vincent

Shane Jones -

I just ate eggs. Breakfast for dinner is what Robin called it. Is there such a thing as dinner for breakfast? I’m sure some jabony...

Moneybags

Lee Relvas -

Once I put a dollar bill in my mouth for a minute because my hands were full, and someone said to me, “Did you know...

This Way Up

Angelica Zollo -

He was always late to dinner. He slept through Christmas. He was late to his mother’s funeral. He asked if they had taped it because...

You’re Gonna Scream When You Die

Joanna C. Valente -

He asked if he could come on her breasts. They weren’t using a condom and she wasn’t on birth control but K didn’t like using...

Girlfriend

Deirdre Coyle -

Another cockroach crawls through my hair. I lift its body, watch its legs wiggle. I hate to kill anything, so I flick him into a...