Dead Meat

The carcass on the shoulder buzzed with flies and other insects feeding on the rotting flesh. The process of decay started the moment the vehicle, probably an SUV or pickup truck by the amount of damage, rammed into it.

Larger critters had already been by, but there was enough intermittent traffic during the day that the real feast would wait until dark.

In a way, we're always rotting, from the moment we're born. It's thanks to the magic of cellular technology we're able to keep regenerating through the decades, sloughing off the dead skin and useless morality as we go.

Why Would She Leave?

When Mother abandoned our family, I was ten and I was bereft. Why would she leave? Dad said Mother didn’t love me, like he did. But, Dad’s love was accompanied by belittlement and backhanded smacks. When Dad died in that crash, six years later, relief mixed with my self-pity.

I reunited with my boy at the funeral. He stood dumbfounded while I rushed to describe not feeling safe, fearing he’d turn “nasty” (like Rick), watching from afar, and all my regrets. I left when he started to look like Rick. I returned only when convinced he wasn’t becoming his father.

From Guest Contributor Bob Gielow

Biker

She first hit the big time in the musical Binary System. It was a righteous indignation among the bikers. “You’re right about the party- it’s awful,” Fly Wind said single-handedly. We were all looking at her in her akimbo position. Her shirt was on back to front.

“If anything goes wrong, the technicians are here to put it right,” Madam Sixth Sense, the head, spoke slowly and clearly. “Who do you back to win the Superbowl?”

We slowly backed away from the snake.

She raised me as she was wrong. We played billiards a long time before I came in.

From Guest Contributor Jacob Kobina Ayiah Mensah

Jacob is the author of more than 19 poetry book publications, including Witness and a poetry collection in Spanish, agua y color, is forthcoming from Valparaiso Poetry Press. His individual pieces have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including JMWW, Constellations, Trampoline, 1-70 Review, Beautiful Cadaver Project Pittsburgh, The Meadow, Beyond Words Literary Magazine, Rigorous, etc. He lives in the southern part of Ghana, in Spain, and the Turtle Mountains, North Dakota.

Reflections In The Rain

Amid labyrinthine alleys and neon-lit streets, a small cafe beckons. Inside, a lone figure cradles a lukewarm coffee, eyes weary yet searching. Across, a young couple laughs—a fleeting yet beautiful symphony of joy.

The cafe hums: baristas call orders, chatter blends into a comforting buzz. Inside him, a yearning tide—echoes of a once-ablaze love, now scattered like dead autumn leaves. Rain taps a melancholy rhythm, each drop a plea.

The coffee, bitter; the rain, demanding. He catches someone staring back—unspoken stories, quiet regrets. He reaches to comfort the other, feeling only glass. No one searches but himself.

From Guest Contributor Chinmayi Goyal

Elegantly Wasted

Tom was an alcoholic. First thing every morning he made himself an extremely dry martini: straight gin, but in a martini glass to feel classy. In the evening, he put on a tuxedo and drank champagne. Not sparkling wine. The French stuff.

Tom worked downtown. He took long lunches at the club and came back to the office smelling of mint and tangerine. He was a partner, so no one ever complained. Not to his face.

Tom considered himself a functioning alcoholic.

His ex-wife and her phalanx of lawyers considered Tom a threat to harm himself and those around him.

The Right Thing

When I stepped into the cold of the night, the wind against my face, there wasn’t a soul in sight. I walked the streets in desperate need of an answer. Those files I found would ruin the company and probably cost me my job but inevitably save lives. I wish I hadn’t come across those documents. At least I wouldn’t have insomnia.

After what seemed like hours, I had an idea. I’d go in tomorrow as if nothing happened. No one would suspect a hard working every-day man like me would do what I decided.

And that’s the right thing.

From Guest Contributor Lisa M. Scuderi-Burkimsher

Analog

Clocks are next to useless and no alarm cares what you think of it. Their noise is neither birdsong nor church-bell. It is measured by eye-blinks and muscle contractions. Clocks reflect anxiety when the big hand overtakes the little. Their seconds are like tickles of hair. Sometimes clocks are said to be buying time. But what happens when that time is only borrowed? Clocks stop without notice when their time is up. When their battery runs out, it sounds like the click of a tiny rifle; the tapping of a deathwatch beetle. No one hears it until it’s too late.

From Guest Contributor Cheryl Snell

Mia

The truth is ugly and often hurts.

Mia triggered those around her with her refusal to couch her insults. Every remark succeeded in cutting the receiver exactly where it hurt most.

Her justification was that everyone deserved the truth. Only by recognizing his faults would a person be able to improve themselves.

However Frank, Mia's ex-boyfriend, used the excuse of honesty to rationalize being hurtful towards her. He claimed he was behaving no differently than Mia, but Mia didn't feel bad after speaking honestly to others.

Frank was a jerk. Mia told him so as she broke up with him.

A Clouded Sky Is Preferred

What kind of clouds do you like most, I asked, and he said definitely horsetail cirrus and then he said no cloud is like another and that’s when I told him what Judy said about zebras, that no two are the same; that each is as unique as a fingerprint and the young memorize their mother’s pattern to find them in the herd or running along the ancient migration where they hang out with wildebeests because zebras have keen eyes and wildebeests have keen noses and zebras eat long grass and wildebeests eat short. I like tall thunderheads, I said.

From Guest Contributor Jeanie Tomasko

Thinking Outside the Coop

In a quaint village beyond the hills, lived a scatterbrained chicken named Cluckers. Every morning, Cluckers would lay eggs and forget where she put them. The villagers chuckled, but Farmer Ben grumbled, "No eggs for breakfast!"

One day, Cluckers stumbled upon a stash of eggs hidden under a bush. "Eureka!" she screamed. Cluckers went to share her discovery with the other chickens, encouraging them to "think outside the coop."

Word spread. Soon, every chicken laid eggs in unexpected places. Farmer Ben's breakfasts improved, and the village learned: even mishaps teach valuable lessons.

And Cluckers? She never forgot that lesson again.

From Guest Contributor Chinmayi Goyal