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Satire

The Opiate Books Presents Lindsay Lohan Stole My Life: A Satire of the 00s

The book that was too hot to handle in Hollywood and all other mainstream locales (basically just leaving Italy, where scandal is sacrosanct and nobody reads anyway). Find out the truth about the 00s and the butterfly effect of Lindsay Lohan not only on our current Kardashian-Jenner driven culture, but on ex-socialite and underdog Tate Carmichael. Buy a tangible copy online at Bookshop.org here. Or … Continue reading The Opiate Books Presents Lindsay Lohan Stole My Life: A Satire of the 00s

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Poetry

Irreparable by Syed Zaman

A spherical sculpture—formed byShards of broken mirrors sewnTogether with mimetic memoirs—Where dazzling reflections areConcealed within the sphereItself—becomes invisible to theSpectator—Alluding to the fire that shedsLight on the fragility of thePermanence of—theImpermanent—Suffering suffused in the chainOf the enduring presence of theWounds we bear from the past—The sensation that a missing partRemains connected to bothIntimate and material injuries—A myriad of memories—Harking back to the ghosts ofTheir demands … Continue reading Irreparable by Syed Zaman

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Poetry

The Isolationist by Alex LeGrys

she drinks too muchon Friday nightsand she makesme cocktails forher lectures beforeopening her favorite self-helpbook she’s muchthinner than I am andher hair is fairer with opal eyes to match I tried corralling her with Schopenhauer or Camus or Beckettyet she never seemed impressed–shesays she wantsto be happy once I told her miseryis motivation–she laughed andhad me turnoff the BBC whilefunneling a cosmopolitandown my gullet she says you can makeyour own world–the trouble … Continue reading The Isolationist by Alex LeGrys

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Poetry

The Ones You Love by Celia Meade

after Aaron Caycedo-Kimura What if you promisedyou would kill methe night before I was takento the care home, or to the hospice? What if I asked you togrind a pill into my evening glass of milk—is that love? Something so burdensome,all that grindingand surreptitiousslipping of powder. You spoke of the motherwho asked her sonto carry her to the mountainand leave her in an earthen hollow. Your own … Continue reading The Ones You Love by Celia Meade

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Essay

Valeria’s Self-Publishing Journey Is the Type of Schlock That Encourages Naïve Dreams of Author Grandeur

There are all of about three truly “noteworthy” and “recent” self-publishing success stories: Legally Blonde, Fifty Shades of Grey and Diary of an Oxygen Thief (each book being decidedly diverse in content). There have been others, of course, even from the more “old school” authors, like Proust, Woolf, Austen and Hawthorne. And their work was perhaps more “viral” at the time precisely because we didn’t then use terms like “viral” … Continue reading Valeria’s Self-Publishing Journey Is the Type of Schlock That Encourages Naïve Dreams of Author Grandeur

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Poetry

In the Waiting Room by Laura King

Half of us neurotic, jet-laggedwe sit in a living room with a vinyl floor.One paces, glances at his smartwatchat thirty-second intervals.The woman on a sofa won’t make eye contactbecause this is not her country.Another hums a lullaby, says she’s dreamedof being a mother, calls herself Infertile Myrtle,tells of dead embryos.One man asks for a cup of coffee.A young woman says she’s brought a cameraand a … Continue reading In the Waiting Room by Laura King

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Fiction

My Beloved Water Filter by M. D. Talley

It was love at first power squat. Girl meets girl. Neither of us were cut out for CrossFit. I wanted to stay slender despite a red wine, cheese and baguette diet, not become a sweaty gladiator. No, we were beginner yoga forever, where we ran into each other again—at Yoga Forever. I figured we must live in the same neighborhood. Recognition, innocent laughter and “we’re … Continue reading My Beloved Water Filter by M. D. Talley

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Essay

On the Subversiveness of the Act of Reading in The White Lotus

Reading, in general, feels like an “anomalous” act. Particularly if it’s tangible literature. For “screen methods” have made it easy for “regulars” and vacationers alike to download as many books (a truly odious phrase) as they want to without worrying about the extra bulk it might cause in their suitcase or carry-on. Thus, the subversiveness of “analog” reading is taken to a new level within … Continue reading On the Subversiveness of the Act of Reading in The White Lotus

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Poetry

Trees by Betsy Martin

a pithy fall day the hill stippled withpeach, rose, yellowa friend and I stride over it among other walkers, maples oaks, ripple of leaves with breeze brisk on our cheeks we talkabout youth, the old streetsfamilies, secrets, seedswhisked by decades of winds and about necks how to wind a scarfto hide the furrowswe talk about beeches with gray bark-fleshstill bearing initials and heartscarved into themwhen they were young __________________________________________________________________Betsy Martin … Continue reading Trees by Betsy Martin

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Poetry

No eye contact is to be had by Susie Gharib

I walk the streets since I’m still part of the herd,which our ancestors had called humankind, but no eye contact is to be had,only an ocean of heaving, bowed heads, absorbed in the contents of their possessive hands. Little, local gossips have swelled into global slander of the first class.Domestic, personal festivities are available for pernicious sneers and heated debates.Each ego is inflated with the aid of … Continue reading No eye contact is to be had by Susie Gharib

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