Kade Morgan - Western Washington University

There’s an octopus painted on the wall in blown-out strokes of spray-paint, with long, liquidy limbs and big, gaping suckers. It’s blue and green and orange and stands out against the crumbled gray building it adorns. You don’t pass it a second glance. I can’t stop looking at it and thinking about your tiny hands and how gentle you used to be.

The last time you or anyone else saw a real-life octopus was on your third birthday. You told me recently that you can’t remember anything before age 7, but I think that’s understandable when you consider how trauma fucks with memory, especially in children, and when you consider how the world as we knew it, as you had only barely known it, was ending.

Ania Fierro - University of Texas at El Paso

On a windy October morning, Aracely woke up to an empty bed. She avoided looking at his pillow or the emptiness that lingered beside her. His side had remained untouched since the day he left. She began pulling herself out of bed when a scent escaped from between the sheets. The smell rose from the gap between her skin and her comforter, and it wrapped itself only around Aracely’s uncovered face. It settled between her nostrils and made itself known. It was rancid. Horribly pungent and strong. If Aracely had not known any better, she would have guessed a skunk crawled inside her bed, cuddled with her, and died before it could escape, leaving behind this foul smell. But besides Aracely, the bed was empty. She had washed her linen the night before and gone to sleep on pristine sheets and comforter. Wherever it came from, it was real, and it had chosen to make her bed its home.

McKenna Seiger - University of the Incarnate Word

I loved the way she said my name, the way the corners of her mouth curled up at the side, how my name sounded warm and rich from her lips. I would stare at her mouth whenever she spoke, and daydream of what it must feel like to lay on the curve of her upper lip. I loved it when she’d lean forward across the library table when she talked, like every phrase was a secret she only shared with me. Sometimes I would make her laugh while we studied together. I loved the way she would tilt her head back, allowing you to see all of her teeth without embarrassment. I loved that she was never embarrassed, sometimes I would get shy at how we must’ve looked to the girls we went to school with - if we looked more than friendly. Sometimes, I caught myself hoping that we did.

Faith Monesteri - Montclair State University

Once Upon A Time, there were seven folding chairs, all in a circle.

In one of the folding chairs sat a girl without her heels. In another chair was a girl missing her toes. Together, they were Sisters with two full feet. Their eye sockets were empty voids, not an eyeball in sight. The Sisters held each other’s hands with white knuckles, jumping at any sudden noise.