The scar on my breast is a dark reddish brown, fading slowly at the edges. It is curved, like a parenthesis. There is a slight indentation, a flat spot under the blemish that shows when I stand in profile. The scar is hidden, even by my most revealing bathing suit. Most of the time I…
Category: Issue 5
Issue 5.5 – Fiction
The first year I lived in a very tall building. The tower was plain, ugly even, despite its remarkable height. It was a place to live. From my window, I could see the offices of electronics companies and, when the haze wasn’t bad, a flat ribbon of the river. The haze was usually bad. Some…
Issue 5.5 – Poetry
I’m breaking out of this hell I called home. I will not sit in this rancid, rotten underground dome. I’m showing no mercy to my tormentors, no, the demons who killed me, who broke me to my bones. I’m taking over this dungeon, I’m holding on to hope— to renewed dreams— and I’m…
Issue 5.4 – Nonfiction
Once, while my senior English students were discussing whether or not Ophelia and Hamlet “did the deed” our discussion turned toward questions of rape. I was shocked to hear a number of my male students express their belief that a girl who dresses provocatively or gets drunk “has it coming”. I was equally shocked to…
Issue 5.4 – Fiction
His birth name was Brandon Karlsson, but he went by Strom, this was his grandmother’s surname. People imagined that it was part of his work, his rejection of masculinity. His longing for the female. The mother. The grandmother. The womb. He painted a lot of small, oval-shaped doorways. Exotic street foods, Cuban empanadas, cut down…
Issue 5.4 – Poetry
We shouldn’t tell him that she sold her eggs when she was twenty for a thousand bucks to get milk for her newborn baby. Her baby is 9 now. Don’t tell him she’s trying to raise her baby all by herself. Don’t tell him she doesn’t and didn’t need anyone. Don’t tell him she was…
Issue 5.3 – Nonfiction
I am twenty-three years old, and I’m in love. I love my boyfriend. I’ve known him since grade nine, and he loves me. I can’t believe he loves me. It’s so important that he loves me because I don’t love myself enough. I’m shy and his love makes up for it. His laughter and games…
Issue 5.3 – Fiction
It’s 11:05 a.m., which means fifty-five minutes till the post is due. I’m in the kitchen, waiting, leaning right forward over the draining board. Through the window, I watch the windsock the weather-mad neighbours across the way have stuck up in their garden, a heavy canvas thing hanging right over their fence. Right now it’s…
Issue 5.3 – Poetry
You said I was like milk, like a baby Protected not by strength but innocence I was afraid I’d never know what it feels like to be loved Now I am afraid of you And you stay and stand confused In anticipation of disarray. Nobody to save your fragile soul For you chose…
Issue 5.2 – Nonfiction
THE RED-COATED luggage wallah wedges my bag under seat number 23C. I push a folded one hundred rupee note into his rough brown hand and he is off. The train shunts forward; we’re on our way. Seated, I catch my breath, lean my head back against the green formica wall, close my eyes and…
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