My love is a store whose shelves are stocked with goods which are all long past their expiration date. Somewhere amongst the forgotten and unwanted items I know there’s still one or two things whose time has not yet come. They’re waiting patiently, like me, for the day a shopper finally comes inside and finds exactly what’s she’s been looking for. When that day comes (and it will), all the waiting will have been worth it, and I can shut down the register, turn off the lights, and close the doors for the last time on this unique little shop.

From Guest Contributor Dan Slaten

We thought we’d have forever, but forever doesn’t last as long as it once did. One year, seven months, four days since we wed. Your beauty captivated me. Never thinking of yourself, you touched many lives, changed them, helped people achieve their deepest aspirations. You challenged me, forced me to chase my dreams. But what about your dreams, desires? You’ll never reach them now. You were there for me, but I failed you. Forgive me?

Goodbye.

From Guest Contributor Joshua Lanham

Even to this day I curse, swear and kick myself for having dozed off that painful night. Though I kept vigil all through her illness, the feeling of guilt has never subsided.

My being awake at her last moments would mean nothing, but I feel guilty for expecting the death of my loving pet.

From Guest Contributor Thriveni C. Mysore.

She was impeccable. His mentor. Love. Tears clouded his vision as he viewed their life together through photos he flipped.

He grumbled at the cancer that had wasted her body. Lifted the rotten fruit and threw it out.

From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs

Krystyna writes poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Her fiction and poetry have recently been published online and in journals at: Nailpolish Stories, 50-Word Stories, 100 word story, A Story in 100 Words, 101 Words, From the Depths (Haunted Waters Press), ShortbreadStories, and espresso stories. Her nonfiction has appeared in flash fiction chronicles and in Wild Lands Advocate. Krystyna resides in Alberta, Canada.

We chased each other between rows of plum trees. Leafy boughs drooped with blossoms casting shadows in our tracks.

Love no longer filled that space.

From Guest Contributor Krystyna Fedosejevs

Krystyna writes poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction. Her recent work has been published at: Nailpolish Stories, 50-Word Stories, 100 word story, Boston Literary Magazine, From the Depths (Haunted Waters Press), ShortbreadStories and espresso stories.

Twenty years of door keeping had taught me not to be late to work. I started early on a rainy day. Just round the corner, I saw this puppy wet to the bone. I took him home, dried, fed, cuddled and put him in cozy box. I rushed to my work a good thirty minutes late. The big man called me in, fired me from service. I went back home.

Honest loving pair of eyes greeted me with joy. Twenty minutes care had raked such love in him, I felt, my twenty years of service just went down the drain.

From Guest Contributor Thriveni C. Mysore

When the brown moths would gather on the ceiling, you would take them up in your hands and set them loose outside. Yes, I miss that. And you are right. It is true that I was vengeful. It is true that I was impossible to pin to the carpet. And I used rhetoric to slip out of body. But what you wouldn’t hear, what I tried to tell you, was that I felt like a fish on the shore, begging for water. Love me, please, hear me, please, see? You kept saying, “The sand is water, so swim in it.”

From Guest Contributor, Addy Evenson

It begins innocently. His eyes meet hers from across the room and suddenly everything feels different. The blue and green lights swirling overhead seem brighter somehow, the bass booms deeper, and the voice escaping from the speakers is now the voice of an angel. The crowd weaves back and forth, splits open, then creates an unencumbered path between them.

He is mistaken about all these things, of course – a glance is sometimes just a glance – but he won’t realize this until it is far too late to save his heart from the inevitable crushing pain that accompanies first love.

From Guest Contributor, Dan Slaten

She holds two swords of societal success. Her career of achievement, her marriage of love realized. Nice house, nicer car. The look that men look at – even her husband. Meditative dreams on summer days under a comforter of cool breezes. Still, one regret reflects the swords’ sharp edges. Cut her caesarean style – deep as you like; take out the child she cannot carry… his son. The single thing she cannot give him. Justice, she feels, is not in the cards for her. She seeks to be satiated through gluttonous eyes. Where are maternity clothes, the infant boy she must steal?

From Guest Contributor. Keith Hoerner

Keith lives, teaches, and pushes words around in St. Louis, Missouri.

If This World Would Allow it, I would Curl You Into Me, Caught from Flinging

I will build a catapult against instruction, an implication of backward, showing you from the cupped seat to base, flat and without lacquer, just how far necessity sounds through an ear’s tunnels, when the breath propelling the assertion is something past love. Sentiment is reactionary, but I promise fullness and recompense after the flight. Thatches of bendy straws still wait, splayed in divided nests under my pillow to serve as extra reminders after you inevitably ask: “What does it mean to land, to really land?”

From Guest Contributor, Kelli Allen

Kelli Allen’s work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies in the US and internationally. She served as Managing Editor of Natural Bridge and holds an MFA from the University of Missouri. She is currently a Professor of English and Creative Writing at Lindenwood University. Allen gives readings and teaches workshops throughout the US. Her full-length poetry collection, Otherwise, Soft White Ash, from John Gosslee Books (2012) was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.