Featured – Page 4 – swamp pink

Something Was Wrong With the Administrator

Something was wrong with the new Administrator. Marsha knew this right away. He was a very young man, or perhaps not young; prematurely bald, but with a child’s face; argumentative, but conciliatory; with a Southern accent, but who had been born and lived all his life in New Hampshire. He was a sympathetic and gregarious boss who invited the concerns of his staff,...

Correlation

At dinner, Felix’s mother offers him the ceramic bowl with the green beans, rests her gaze on his face, waiting, as if she has asked him a question, though she hasn’t. A clean, golden line of rage angles down through his guts. He glares at her until she looks away, puts the bowl down, a fucking coward. “School...

THE GRANDFATHER

My grandfather called. We talked about baseball and the upcoming election. He told me about his cataracts and asked what I was up to. Every word he said amazed and unsettled me. You see, my grandfather had been dead for years. I’d never quite gotten over it. I wanted to tell him this, but it seemed inappropriate. I was probably just too scared to say anything. Talk to you later, he said like he always did. Talk to you later, I said. * Soon after, I was getting a chicken salad sandwich...

Nobody Said Anything

We stole. We liberated packages from doorsteps. We robbed the convenience store. Sometimes simply because we wanted something. Sometimes to prove something, to show courage. The bravest kids reached into the cars of visiting men, even before it got dark. They were distracted, we’d tell each other. One of us would watch the apartment door and the other would grab whatever was available. We never got anything to sell. We threw away a lot. We stole for the power...

Influencers

Sidney and I started work on the same day, her as a Client Support Specialist at a small influencer marketing startup on 1st and Mission, and me as a Client Support Specialist at a small influencer marketing startup on 2nd and Montgomery. She was on the front end, which meant working with influencers directly, and...

SOME NEWBORNS SHOW SIGNS OF WITHDRAWAL

The girls had the man in the shed for sixty-seven days before Quinn found out. Quinn found the man’s wallet in her daughter Peyton’s closet. His license showed a six-foot-two organ donor with thick, blonde hair. There were no cards or cash. She scared herself imagining the ways a fifty-three year old man’s wallet could...

MOSHPIT SONNET

February 10, 2026

they keep us on our toes, absolutely we’ve touched where it matters which shape-shifting fool told u that the cruel hoe-bag is alone again dares too sloppy a slob & everybody knows it only crazy ppl have the time listing all the shows they’ve seen no one cares ! some of us have places to be like roombas stuck in corners don’t make me call...

The Cost of Eggs

February 3, 2026

While the rest of the country loses their collective mind, you drive your chicken to the vet. The country is losing it because the cost of a dozen eggs—caged, conventional, the kind made cheap and cruel—is $7, marching toward $8. Bird flu is in several states. One person had died. Another is sick. The virus...

Oh, Enviable Machine

February 3, 2026

I’m convinced I’ll die putting on or taking off my pants. Something will happen ¾ of the way through. My foot will catch. I’ll topple, as the great kingdoms, my dreams of celebrity, while outside, rain smears the landscape into kindergarten art class. And I will curate that moment, as “curator” is the new word for everything, war to wedding. And with these dreary piles of laundry shall I fortify my ruins. It’s a fundamental part of my planned obsolescence. Me and the refrigerator. You and a line...

New Crisis Homily

February 3, 2026

Roughly a quarter of suicides happen away from home, often in hotel rooms. They are “lethal locations.” People who work at hotels know this, but don’t talk about it. It’s not the sort of thing one advertises, but they think about it when going into a room, in that bit of time the corner of the bed and pile of sheets takes to resolve itself. And now that...

[The way you stood under those stars]

February 3, 2026

The way you stood under those stars like it was romantic, like it was like that, like it was. I want it to be how it was. Was it how you pictured it? I want you to name what it was. How high you were and who you were with when it was. Your eyes...

[Listen to this, flies against the thick]

February 3, 2026

Listen to this, flies against the thick panes. Did you know that people had to wash their own windows of the smog? To have clean windows wasto have status, like my sister with allher marriage beads. Both when I started and when I stopped communing with God, I threw away all of my old journals....