Author: Axel-Nathaniel Rose
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Xiào
by Wen Yu Yang Content warning: emotional abuse The consequence of Shae surviving the car crash is the permanent absence of her parents. Out of obligation rather than love or pity, her Auntie Hua takes her in. Auntie Hua, distant relative, poor and out of luck, is already a single parent raising her son, five-year-old…
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Lilly
by Phoebe Au Soft, frail and pretty, she lies there, wilting behind my father’s window. She was in bloom once, plucked from a lush green meadow, severed from her roots. Leaves, like green wings, clipped. Her cries, hastily stifled. Stems, violently snapped. Unable to speak. A windowsill ornament, unable to scream. Left to watch the…
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Brink and Scrawl
by Liana Charles Brink Life, stretching its wingsin two sunbound arcs from the heart,cuts loose the clear breezewhich whips and whirls the world to singone high note: a dartto crack the crust of childhood’s freeze.Breathe in, and step out,for down below the soft world wakes.Each fresh fingertipyearns to trace the dawn’s joyous shout;Each feathered heart…
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The Snowy Ranges
by Nina Greenhill To the place that calls me, where my heart finally beats, where my breath returns steady; where the quiet is real and strain is gone, where my self will rest, where my soul will live on. It has my love free from duress. It waits and understands. It will call, and it…
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Parasite
by Juliet Manolias Over fifty species of cuckoo are brood parasites. They lay their eggs in another bird’s nest and fly back home, while their non-cuckoo hosts are left to do all the work. The resulting chick is demanding. It quickly outgrows its foster parents in size, volume, appetite. It’s a wonder how they keep…
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Living in Yesterday
by Flyn Moss Content warning: house fire, death It’s a small comfort to confront the inevitable. To see our tragedies replay themselves over and over and over again. With a checkpoint and an achievement, you have reached the next second successfully, you have reached the next hour successfully, you have reached the next year successfully……