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skip to main | skip to sidebar 214 lede On a winter's night, in the blind massage parlor by Anqi Cao (she/her) I  pushed through the iron gate, the creak echoing off the stairwell's worn walls like a familiar greeting. Ahead, silhouettes of a man and a woman were inching down the stairs, leaning on each other more than the shaky handrail. The hallway's dim light seemed to soak into the man’s weathered skin, giving him a twilight glow. I recognized the man—Old Gao, and next to him, Fangfang, her arm hooked around his. Despite Fangfang looking three times as big as Old Gao, there was something almost childlike in her dependence on him. They both waited in place, as I slipped past with a murmured "Excuse me," barely louder than the shuffle of my feet. ...click to READ MORE No. 214 20240804 Dear Father Cosmo, I shall be pleased to discuss with you some specific subjects for the paintings that have been commissioned. I expect to arrive in California next month. I’m sure that you are fully joyful that the Holy Father has granted permission for some religious paintings, perhaps including a fresco, for your beloved parish. I shall meet you for lunch as we previously arranged.                Yours In Christ,                Domenico TojettiPatience is the Companion of Wisdom by Peter J. Dellolio Father Cosmo, like many people in their early forties, had discovered one day that he could no longer read without the aid of eyeglasses. The priest preferred a large magnifying glass. He used it whenever he went through correspondence at his desk in the rectory alongside the church. A letter of great importance had arrived recently and he had left the heavy thick instrument on top of it while he prepared for morning mass. The shapes of the inked words became enlarged and distorted, like the dissected particles of an insect viewed on a slide under a microscope, because the convex surface of the glass rested so close to the handwritten page. ...READ MORE You Won't Live and You Won't Leave by Berendsje Westra The woman in the chat room told me her bathroom floor resembled an abattoir after she’d inserted the tablets. With me, not much happened. Just a few red streaks in my knickers the next morning, which is why I’m here. ‘Hello. I’m Richard.’ From my horizontal position on the gurney, I listen to Richard explaining the procedure. His voice and gaze tell me he makes an effort to see the person behind the patient. But is he Doctor Gower? I had an appointment with Dr Gower. Someone behind my head wheels me to the operating theatre. Upon my arrival, a hush falls on the medical team’s banter; their eyes turn to me. I tremble. This room is cold and all these males and females, clad in green gowns, face masks pulled over chins, will see my bush. ...READ MORE But at what cost? | Spring Dance. by Angela Sun so the headlines crescendo on until the line breaks into a frenzy. like the dead women gutted by soft hands that held the pink ink of passports and won with faces pale as bellied cod, i can wrap my mouth around your words like any outliver, but here's the truth: you split my country open ...READ MORE All Patched Over. | Into the Snow. | Backtown Boys High – Strength Through Struggle. by Les Wicks Toomyville Academy of the Arts was built on the site of a massacre. Never talk about it folks in the town don’t especially the oldest because they know silence is a lid. ...READ MORE And I Feel Just Like Jesus' Son. by Lilly Mouradyan On mornings when I crawl To the front door of my apartment, And see that I’ve left it unlocked. I’m reminded of the breeze on my face That only midnight can produce, From an open front door, While my father slept like a baby On the couch of our living room. ...READ MORE Even in the Small Worlds, You Came First. | I Begged God for Your Anger and Instead He Gave Me… | United States of Virgin Martyrs. by Kale Hensley (they/them) I hate when you show up in my small worlds! The ones I craft out of alabaster and child’s math, oases lacking long fingers and necks worth gnawing, be careful, you had said, she will see the mark. ...READ MORE instant gratification. by BEE LB bottle-rocket pop-gun pressure-burst no one can wait fireworks started before the sun set, before dusk was even a whisper under the sky’s tongue, before anxiety could even think to prepare for what was coming ...READ MORE Three Cathedrals. | Recitation of the First Great Sutra. by Eric Subpar (he/him) there are three cathedrals inside Brian Eno's heart the first could house jonah a coquettish cottage residing on the tongue of a big blue whale ...READ MORE Brighter Negatives. | Inordination. | In a Silent Way. by Sebastian Hunter (he/him) The Swiss were in the news again. This signifies the transference of autumn. Money continually changes hands. I have no words for you, Mr. Attorney General. My words have shriveled up with disuse. Or they have drowned themselves in the unholy reservoir. ...READ MORE Weasel Biting a Basilisk. by Catie Bull In the bestiary illumination they seem one. The curve of the weasel’s confidently cocked back left claw snagged in the blue wings flexes into a smooth weasel-back drop down to where its teeth grace the lissome writhing neck. ...READ MORE Choreographed Moonlake Dance. | O, if I Were the Waters. by Pleasant Nneoma Stephen White wings sweep the moonlake's surface. Yellow glints sway in motion amidst the lake’s breathing pace, steady and faint. A shallow tinkling dip, another dip, dip, dip, dip, dip, till you feel the waters’ trickling chant ...READ MORE Savasana. by Rachael Sevitt I hereby leave my twinges my stiffness and my nervous shoulder to the mat it’s called corpse pose and I understand down here as close to the ground ...READ MORE Demons (1985) | The Blob (1988) | City of the Living Dead (1980) by Ryan Clark If Lamberto Bava’s Demons was about people watching a movie about demons and then becoming demons, themselves, and if I watched Demons and watched people turn into demons after watching a movie about demons, and if I finished a box of a dozen doughnuts within 24 hours by slicing a jelly doughnut in half and using the knife to scoop the raspberry filling into the sink, wiping the red gunk (a glob the size of my thumb) against the metal ring surrounding the drain and turning on the faucet to wash it away into the disposal, and if my heels are growing bone spurs and my blood is pumping faster because I’m frustrated with your voice keeping me from thinking ...READ MORE The Archery Shop Near the Railroad Tracks Above the River. | The Suffering of Living Things. by Peter Mladinic My name is featherlight, my name is cloud, jonquil, my name is good. I never wanted to do wrong, I wanted to do wrong. My name is white bark of the birch on the path, and oak. ...READ MORE Welcome Home. | We’ve All Done This. by Patrick Meeds The best way to express yourself, is through confident body language and clear concise language. Raise your hand high and say I will volunteer to be lowered into the abandoned well to rescue that baby. ...READ MORE Interview with the Trickster by Russ López (he, him) Facebook and Apple anchor the north and west ends of the commercial portions of Silicon Valley, Cisco and Netflix the south and east. In the middle of this great collection of tech giants sits the large campus of Coyote Enterprises, twenty thousand employees laboring away in buildings covered in a mishmash of stucco and aqua tinted glass. Inside the complex is every amenity known to corporate America. Employees can get their nails done, drop off their children at daycare, and eat free at Michelin starred restaurants. The luxuries don’t stop there. Coyote Enterprises employs another two hundred thousand in other parts of the world. The company is traded on the New York Stock Exchange and is a household name, yet no one knows what the company does, nor can anyone name a single product the company sells. ...READ MORE Sausages of Substantial Deniability by Gabriella Garofalo [I] Five minutes into a federal tickle warrant has proved these jocular strap happy words to be self-evident, non-applicable, and subject to change at the whim and whimsy of the thin and flimsy. You know the type… voids in the synaptic cleft; subject to heavy metal poisoning… provided they have not been crushed by the overwhelming intentional vigor that fuels a Slayer mosh pit. ...READ MORE Little Apple Girl | Cigarettes and Romance by Frederick Frankenberg (he/him) At the farmstand, a girl with strawberry-blonde hair held back by a crenated clip opens the flesh of an apple. She leans her shoulder on the frame of the doorway and sits on an upside-down bucket. The exaggerated curves of her torso mismatch her stringy body. Dimples come about on her ruddy cheeks when she looks at me and smiles. She probably stands as tall as my shoulders. Her breasts are like taut cones inside the veil of her t-shirt, and her bright pale face is like that in a teen magazine. A red haze enshrouds her like an aura. ...READ MORE                   1727027474https://thesquawkback.com

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