Penduline Press

Nina Rockwell

A swastika, black and bold, was etched into the skin of my lover.
“What the hell is that?” I glared into his eyes. I searched for the answer so it wouldn’t be said out loud.
“You know what it is.”

The medicine you gave me was a Mitsubishi driving on my
tongue,
green pyramids in my palms, left stigmata stains,
but my feet were clean,
and the day was an enemy
that cut out our eyes and
rolled them like marbles down the drain.

Conor Walton

Irish Artist

Dave Lordan

…having once again indulged ourselves in a steeply uplifting dose of Dr Essler’s remarkable cocaine, we took off outdoors to join Betty. Wouldn’t it be fun to have another howling orgy out there in the pool? Of course it would. Betty would surely agree, given how she was lying there like an advertisement for pool orgies.

Lysa Rhean Provencio

L.A. Artist

Sarah Bainbridge

I reach for the bottle and my mother quacks in protest. I try to tilt it so I can drink without my lips touching the glass. The wine is warm and fizzy, acidic and sweet. It reminds me of sick.

Barry Ross Smith

New Zealand Artist

Joey Dean Hale

In this anorexic air, cracked skin under layers upon layers, we’ve no shelter save those psychological bunkers we burrowed long ago but do not mistake yourself as half of we.

Leah Givens

St. Louis Photographer

Brendan M. Regan

One O’Brien summer party comes like shrapnel out of the vault. High, drunk, kids, music. One of my first dates with a new, crazed redhead. She slumped against that huge, gnarled tree; wrapped arms part way around it, sweating can of Bud in each hand.

MANDEM

Mythpunk Art Noir

Stephanie Dickinson

The girls along the river were of flawed beauty, specialty mollomars and apricot jams that ended up in Jack’s 99cent Store, backward-glancing girls too unstable to work at Nails Nails Nails or Costco.

Eleanor Leonne Bennett

U.K. Artist

Margaret Elysia Garcia

I remind myself frequently that my lover is not the love of my life. But there is no denying that he is the lover of it.

Lisa Golightly

Portland Artist

Lisa Sinnett

I have enough scars on my body to make a Frankenstein doll. I can’t seem to stop cutting. But I want to live. That’s a lie too.

Brin Levinson