Hot Mess

She waddled when she walked. Her left arm hung like a donkey dick. She loved to sit in the tub with lots of bubbles and read those silly magazines from the grocery checkout. Those were all she could mentally comprehend. She probably only looked at the pictures.

She was told not to take baths. She couldn't lift herself out. No longer had the strength. But damned if she didn't give it a try or two or fifteen. She'd be embarrassed with every rescue. It didn't stop her from filling the tub and getting in.

The paramedics knew her by name.

From Guest Contributor Laura Shell

Laura quit her day job to become a full-time writer. She will be published in Calliope, eMerge, WINK, and Literally Stories, and will have an anthology of horror stories published in February. When she isn't writing or reading short fiction, she watches horror movies with her dog, Groot.

The Beer Has Two Inches Of Foam, Not One.

Pushing too hard. Pushing too fast. Wanting something with such veracity that the world disseminates into popping bubbles. I have poured myself into us with too much speed; I am breathless. You are smothered. As the air escapes into a toxic atmosphere, I gulp your aroma into my lungs. I clutch your being until the oxygen releases into the air, and you die beneath my affections. My sorrow does not reconstitute you; my grief does not call you from beyond. Can you hear the lack, the absence of hope? Slow is not for the desperate. I drown in your absence.

From Guest Contributor, Karen Burton

Karen Burton is an MFA student at Lindenwood University in St. Charles, MO