By Sharon Marie Hier The forest shows its truest face only after the sun abandons it— when the last streak of gold dissolves and the earth exhales its deeper, older breath. In that hour, the wildness wakes. Not the soft, green gentleness of day, but the feral heart beneath it: roots twisted like clenched fists, brambles sharpened into threats, and the night creatures stepping out of their hunger. The darkness here is not empty. It roars. It sings. Its beauty is carved from to

By Megan Cartwright Broken blood vessel blooms, sprouts in tendrils that snake across my eyeball; a white orb moon. I drive nameless roads, consumed by history, shed rust, flakes of a broken blood vessel’s bloom. Map lines spread like veins, plumes beating blue with the heart’s pace, rapid beneath the white orb moon while the cigarette lighter socket looms at the edge of my vision, aches red; blur of blood vessels in bloom, mind and mouth of cotton wool. I exhale dragon’s bre

By Tay Ann I sink my teeth into her neck, wait to taste the copper on my tongue. I taste every compliment she gives, the prayers she sends, the back she bends. I take it all from her, watch as it drains from her veins, as her skin turns pale and cold. I make her look as cruel as me, even as I take it all in. There is only so much one can take, before it numbs them to the pain. I cannot stop. Even when I know it's gone on too long. I feel the end is near. She's almost em