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.

How will you tell people we met? she asks.

She shifts. Her shackles jingle. The guard clears his throat. The truth. I took first at the International Sasquatch Rodeo. You were runner-up.

From Guest Contributor Keith J. Powell

Keith is co-founder of Your Impossible Voice. Find more of his writing at www.keithjpowell.com.

In ancient Rome, the Vestal Virgins held a sacred place. As long as each Vestal remained chaste, the walls of Rome would never be penetrated. But…

“What? That excuse again?”

From Guest Contributor David Sydney

I didn’t grow up surrounded by art and culture. There were newspapers scattered around the house but few books on the shelves or paintings on the walls. One day I sat drawing in my room – I must have been 12 or 13 years old, just starting to figure shit out – when my mom stuck her head in. She watched me for a moment, then she said, “Why are you wasting paper?” I have had kind of a bad feeling ever since, like the farmer’s wife is still back there in the kitchen torturing three blind helpless mice with a knife.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie’s newest poetry collection is Heart-Shape Hole (Laughing Ronin Press), which also includes examples of his handmade collages.

There are names scratched onto the walls of New York City subway cars. Monday it was Mark. Tuesday, Dylan. Wednesday, Fatima. Thursday, Kat, and Friday, Lucy. The poorly carved letters, engraved with care, resemble the jagged handwriting of a preschooler; It’s something inexplicably human. Though the scratches will fade, and the steel of the cars will corrode, I like to think otherwise; the remnants of these people will linger long after time forgets who they are. Every name I spot, a wave of tranquility washes over me as I stand in a mess of busy people in a busy city.

From Guest Contributor Eshal Yazdani

It’s said to be good luck for homeowners when a carpenter leaves a tool in your walls after a job. They might hide a fish in the vents if they get screwed over for money. It will take years for the smell to dissipate. Whoever built this house went a little too far. At least that’s what I’ll tell the police.

In my mind, I can still see the bodies, skin crumbling, bones exposed. The smell of flesh lingers inside my skull.

From Guest Contributor J. Iner Souster

Sounds become muffled. All she hears is an echo bouncing off the walls. For an infinitesimal moment her soul levitates, detaching from the present. She looks at the doctor’s face as words grow inaudible. A silent scream explodes from her lungs into an invisible body spasm. A voice in her head continues unrestrained: ‘She’ll be alone” but her mind allows her to compose herself as she kisses minuscule freckles on her daughter’s face. As chubby little fingers wipe off her tears, she peers into the eyes of Innocence, so intrinsic, untainted.

The headstone inscribes: ‘RIP Innocence. Your life starts anew.’

From Guest Contributor Andrea Damic

Amateur photographer and author of micro and flash fiction, Andrea Damic, born in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, lives in Sydney, Australia. Her words have been published or are forthcoming in 50-Word Stories, Friday Flash Fiction, Microfiction Monday Magazine, Paragraph Planet, 100 Word Project & TDDR with her art featuring or forthcoming in Rejection Letters, Door Is A Jar Magazine, and Fusion Art’s Exhibitions. One day she hopes to finish and publish her novel. You can find her on TW @DamicAndrea, Facebook or Instagram.

We lived in that house, but we died in it too. It ravished the souls of the living and confined those of the dead. We lived with our eyes closed, but we died with them open. It took us slowly, a gradual disorientation of the senses. We lived far too short, but we died ages ago. It trapped us with a treacherous hive mind, seduced by the whispers in the walls. We lived apart, but we died together. It didn’t hurt and it won’t hurt for you. I watch at the edge of your bed; the ghoul in the shadows.

From Guest Contributor Margaret Gleason

Currently, Margaret Gleason attends Pikes Peak Community College, but has dreams of writing, coding, and drawing her own video games.

‘Once upon a time someone tried to imitate marble with porcelain.

He felt he’d been given insight into an anonymous tile designer’s mindset. He didn’t know how to interpret it, but he had a year-long lease to mull it over.

From Guest Contributor Olivia Rerick

We step into the past, warm and bright, light up a Lucky and slip into the booth by the window with its posh leather seats, its black and white glossies on the walls: Sinatra, Sammy, Bogey and Bacall. We say, Let’s have the T-bone rare, please, the baked potato, loaded, and that wonderful Caesar salad tossed tableside. While outside, mayhem on the march. Throngs chanting, flags unfurled in a cold rain, and darkness soon to settle in. While we sit, sipping Manhattans, cozy in our denial, where dinner will soon be served, and there’s Sinatra piped in, singing “My Way.”

From Guest Contributor Linda Lowe

Linda’s stories and poems have appeared in Beatnik Cowboy, BOMBFIRE, Misfit Magazine, Outlook Springs, and others.