By Emi Gonzalez Perez The can of cola is ice cold in my hands, contrasting the hot summer air that envelops me with a sheen of sweat. I’d found myself at a shabby gas station not far from my best friend Ollie’s house. The lingering promise to stay up with me, forgotten in favor of slipping into his dreamscapes. I’m not upset, at least I don’t think I am, but…

By August Hudson-Vadnais This is an excerpt from a longer story that is a modern-day superhero Alternative Universe (AU) fan fiction of Nintendo’s video game Splatoon. This story takes place in our world, where humans acquire powers suggested by Nintendo’s squidlike characters, but the world-building is based on superhero tropes, with bosses reimagined as corporate villains. Chapter 1 You exhale a long-held breath as you leave the building. Things have…

By Najma Salad THE BLUE SAND AND RED CRABS She told me to keep my feet away because the blue sand was filled with red crabs never quite understood why the sand was blue But it must have been her blurred vision I assume The red crabs are also a figment of her mind tied up to her iris as they shrank looking to find something or anything to explain…

By Krishandra Murphy Water: Water, water everywhere A wonder of nature’s care From mountain high, to seas so vast It flows and moves it never rests Its fills the oceans, lakes and streams Providing life, in its very vastness Water is a miracle of nature.  It nourishes, refreshes, and gives us all pressure. Earth: The Earth is the foundation Where all life on this planet is founded  The rocksand the…

By Sol Madderom The tunes of loss and jealousy ring through the four collective walls of our home. I toss and turn in my bed, convincing myself I am capable of returning to the clouds with the green-eyed beauty if I were to just concentrate hard enough. Mother interrupts my plight by swiftly stripping me of my blanket, letting in the coolness of the room I hadn’t realized was there…

By Najma Salad Frame Through the stillness of the night, I hear the motion of your heart. Skipping beats between breaths But all of it feels right. You feel free among crowded thoughts,  As if you were a kite hanging mid-air. You’re constantly going with the flow. Unbothered by time, though  You forget how much you owe. With newly fed fear you undergo. Darkness after darkness from what you dug…

By Krishandra Murphy How many times have I been here before? 6? Well it is still all the same, the wooded interior that seemed to have every board on the building dented, along with a sheriff; well maybe a junior sheriff that always has to escort me. The wooden building had always been the same with the most abundant sheriff sign always in the front, along with of course, a…

By Sol Madderom Below me, lye colors, the same as the ones found scattered throughout my sister’s body, were given to me by trembling hands so that I forget myself in their metallic taste. My feet dangle, hovering above the cool wooden floors that creak when I inhabit Nate the Great past my bedtime. Father slumps on the plastic-wrapped couch beyond the kitchen door as my sister fixes dinner. I…

By August Hudson-Vadnais FALL DOWN Falling through a maze of glass I fall down, don’t get up I can see the way outside And yet I choose to stay within Falling through a maze of glass I fall down, won’t get up I can see the way outside People begging me to leave the walls And yet I stay within Forever I Fall down LOOK WITHIN I look inside myself…

By Emi Gonzalez Perez I know what it means when she leaves, when she groggily rises from the crumpled cotton sheets, silently and quietly. I know the guilty hang of her head and the curt snap of her words as she collects her wrinkled clothes from the floor of my bedroom. The sound of her nails scratching the hardwood in her haste to get away from me. She ignores me,…