I met the man with the train face at a strawberry picking. Where you buy the basket, scatter into the field, pick as many as you like or as will fit. He moved in a straight line, boring ever farther ahead, picking with one hand, then the other, then engineering the basket forward along the ground. When I was beside him, I could feel his breath like steam; his eyes seemed to let out more light than they took in. Full basket, he passed it to his wife. Her face was a station. She handed him a new, empty basket.

From Guest Contributor Ken Poyner

By the time he awoke that Saturday morning, Otto was exhausted. It was another night of running dreams – of being on a treadmill, getting no place fast. And, then, of the treadmill ratcheted up to greater and greater inclines.

“At least wipe that damned smirk off your face.”

From Guest Contributor David Sydney

The rejection stings. Dave stumbles down the sidewalk, absorbed in his own thoughts, oblivious to the people walking nearby or the rain pouring overhead. Motor memory guides him back to his apartment despite never making a decision to walk home. He’s too preoccupied with being left standing on the curb looking a fool. The others were probably still laughing.

If only he’d been a few seconds quicker, he could have boarded the bus before the door slammed in his face.

Tom was an alcoholic. First thing every morning he made himself an extremely dry martini: straight gin, but in a martini glass to feel classy. In the evening, he put on a tuxedo and drank champagne. Not sparkling wine. The French stuff.

His ex-wife and her phalanx of lawyers considered Tom a threat to harm himself and those around him.

When I stepped into the cold of the night, the wind against my face, there wasn’t a soul in sight. I walked the streets in desperate need of an answer. Those files I found would ruin the company and probably cost me my job but inevitably save lives. I wish I hadn’t come across those documents. At least I wouldn’t have insomnia.

And that’s the right thing.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Beware, murderer. I know widows. I watched my mother become one, imagined how my face would bend and darken in the shadow of the word that means shroud, dusk, ash. What lies inside the bones of a woman who does not crumble before you—who wears this word to war, vowing not to yield? Something heavy: iron, redwoods. Oak, like him: an oak among reeds who knew he would be uprooted, just as she knows she will be. No, it is light, hydrogen fusion in the belly of a star, howling life, dawn, freedom. Beware of this widow on fire.

From Guest Contributor Brook Bhagat

Brook Bhagat (she/her) is the author of Only Flying, a Pushcart-nominated collection of surreal poetry and flash fiction on paradox, rebellion, transformation, and enlightenment from Unsolicited Press. Her work has won or placed in the top two in contests at Loud Coffee Press, A Story in 100 Words, and most recently, the Pikes Peak Library District 2023 fiction contest. It has been published in Monkeybicycle, Empty Mirror, Soundings East, The Alien Buddha Goes Pop, Anthem: A Tribute to Leonard Cohen, and elsewhere. She is a founding editor of Blue Planet Journal and a professor of creative writing Read her work and learn more about Only Flying at https://brook-bhagat.com/.

I would pretend to be sleeping when he flipped on the light in my room. He would loom over me until my eyes opened. The walls would seem to lean in. Fear would distort my breathing. If I tried to scoot away, he would grab me by the arm and drag me back and crack me across the face with the flat of his hand. He was buried on a cold Sunday next to my mother. Some thirty people, mostly family, attended. It began to snow as stood at the graveside. He had finally found a solution to his loneliness.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie co-edits the online journal UnLost, dedicated to found poetry.

This can only last so long. There’s stuff I have to do. I gotta catch up on work and go for a run still today. I have papers due by midnight and I just put a pizza in the oven. I don’t have time for this. My friend keeps texting me “get on the game.” This can only last so long. I’m organizing due dates, scheduling movie nights with friends and stuttering replies to my mother. This can only last so long. My phone lights up with her face again, but like this poem love can only last so long.

From Guest Contributor Anonymous

I’d prefer to remain anonymous however I’d like to say a little about myself. I am not a writer but a teenage kid trying to graduate. I enjoy thinking deeply and taking the chance to put my thoughts on a page in a creative writing class is nice.

The muffled voices from outside the closed door play behind every memory. The echoes of arguments filled my ears each night as I fell asleep. The stinging sliding down my face and the taste of salt along my lips fills me with comfort. My frowning face in the bathroom mirror, as I rinse the dried tears from my cheeks, is a clear picture of me. Home is a safe place. I feel safe behind those doors. I feel safe tucked in my bed. I feel safe as I cry myself to sleep. Home is the familiar noise of troubled souls.

From Guest Contributor Selah Mantravadi

The stars saw her face, someone who wishes wildflowers never died, thunder always accompanied rain, and the sounds of the waves were something that left the shoreline. Even the tears she shed when she thought it was only her and the items of clothes on the floor because the mirror just did not look right. The stars saw the smile she wore when he cherished her in the dark and the tears she lost when she was left to her own company on the worst nights. Some nights the stars were enough. Some nights, she wished they would do more.

From Guest Contributor Caitriona Mullenix