She recalls the first time she saw her parents as people. Not the perfect figures of her picturesque childhood. But real-life, living, breathing people. With feelings. With flaws and fractured hearts. It happened all at once, like the unmasking of a superhero. Still, there was nothing super about it. The world felt larger and the…
Category: Issue 4
Issue 4.3 – Fiction
The building did not allow dogs. The building did not allow cats. Nobody could ever really love a fish, and hamsters and mice and gerbils died too young. So Kasey asked her parents for a bird. “A bird?” said her father. “The damn thing would keep us awake squawking for sure.” “I’ll keep it…
Issue 4.3 – Poetry
The ending is not new, yet still I hesitate to face the remains of time resurfacing as I clean out closed drawers, sort through sealed attic boxes. Framed photographs, love notes, cards of congratulations—the ephemera that summons nostalgia unwanted, of facing cancer in our twenties, of climbing the Rockies, of August walks for ice cream,…
Issue 4.2 – Nonfiction
In times of stress or disillusionment or small-mindedness or general grumpiness I try to summon my inner Mister Rogers and look for the helpers, the good in the world. So often it shines through in the seemingly small acts people do for the ones they love. At Target I walk past a mother-daughter pair doing…
Issue 4.2 – Fiction
The sign at the entrance to the corn maze read “Thirteen and Up ONLY” but Tabby had always looked older than her age and had hurried past the doubtful looking ticket-taker before he could scrutinize her any further, dropping her tickets into the proffered bucket without looking back. There was no way she was…
Issue 4.2 – Poetry
Those old things crammed in corners shouted their accusations; pant legs dangled on hangers, sweaters swallowed shelves, self-righteous in their refusal to fit, obstinate in not giving an inch or half: black and white capris checkered like a raceway flag white no-iron Oxford button-ups Catholic school-girl stiff and prim tees…
Issue 4.1 – Nonfiction
I guess there comes a time in every teacher’s life, if she taught as long as I did, when an event occurs that is so profoundly heart-rending that it stays with you for the rest of your life. The death of a student is one such event. The way one handles the situation with…
Issue 4.1 – Fiction
The way I look forward to their visits, you’d think they happen once a year rather than once a week. But today is Sunday, which means my darling son Robert is coming over with his two children, Annabelle and Mark, nine and seven. I never thought I wanted children—though don’t get me wrong, I loved…
Issue 4.1 – Poetry
I resent it each time I hear someone called a Douchebag, some scum, some insufferable lowlife, some man for whom the worst insult is something used only by women, something done in secret something women thought they had to do to make themselves clean for men as though they were dirty before or after…
Issue 4.1 – Interview
At the Same we love connecting readers with authors, and, today, we interviewed author, Susan Kite. We’re excited to introduce her books, My House of Dreams, The Mendel Experiment, Blue Fire, and Power Stone of Alogol, with readers around the world! the Same: Tell us about yourself! Susan Kite: I grew up all over. My dad was in the Army (making me…
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