QB
Staff of QB
There’s something crawling around. It’s in the walls. I usually hear it at night time. It moves in a hurried pace. It’s looking for something, or maybe it’s running from something. I can’t even tell. It’s been like this for the past two weeks. It’s scurrying inside the walls. It’s shifting as I sleep, or try to sleep. It’s moving like an animal. I can’t even tell how large it is, because it changes in size. Sometimes it’s like a roach. Sometimes it’s like a squirrel. It doesn’t even make a noise otherwise. It’s nocturnal. In the day it seems to be away. I think I need to tape up my vents, and all the cracks in the walls. Now that I mention it, there’s a lot of cracks in the walls, and they’re different sizes too.
Rickey Rivers Jr was raised in Alabama. Tree House can be found on Amazon.
Emergent from complexity
it is feral as an urban tom
that crawls out from underneath
a parked Toyota’s rusty belly
to gnaw an unsuspecting rodent.
It's uncontrollable as a headstrong mustang
whose scaly tongue defies the iron bit
and drags us where we would not go
or disobeys our most direct commands
until our thinking is a feckless gallop.
Its logic often is illogic,
its ideas tangential or like a toddler defiant
and the times we would most rely on it,
it slips away and we can’t find it.
Author writes prose and poetry in NYC USA under the pen name Jan Cronos.
Still got the same golden-butter hair, same as mine, her eyes a matching blue, but her mouth ain’t right. My mama smiles like summer, but this mama ain’t cracked even one since she come outta old Flander’s windmill.
Her hands on me feel salamander cold. She steers me towards the dusty dark what smells of dead things.
“See what’s inside, sweetie?” she says.
This mama’s voice is dull as rocks, not alive with laughter like it’s supposed to be.
“I ain’t going in there,” I tell this mama, but she won’t stop pushing.
This mama’s stronger, too.
Moira writes weird stories and pretends to be a rat on the internet. @moirariom.bsky.social www.ohmoira.com
another yr.
of working
in private
education
which i
fell into
at 21.
i’m 38
now.
the tribulations
of an
english major—
ask
john mulaney.
every yr.
i pep-talk
myself
into
getting out.
open
that bar
or some
kind
of business
that excites
you.
the writing
hasn’t
panned out
yet.
but i
latch onto
this poem
and every
other thing
i write
like it’s
my final
night
that will
deliver
a clean break
in
the morning.
Ken Kakareka is an American writer nominated twice for Best of the Net.
The last thing to divide was a bottle of Shiraz, a wedding gift meant to be shared on our twenty-fifth anniversary. Neither of us wanted the reminder. Nor to be wasteful. Two last things in common.
“Let’s share it, as we sign?”
You opened. I poured.
“Too dry.” Like our bedroom.
“Wasn’t sweet enough to age.” We hadn’t been kind.
“Not enough acidity.” We never fought to preserve our relationship’s thrill.
This marriage was never meant to last six years. Let alone twenty-five.
“At least it’s not bitter.”
We weren’t.
We knew not to linger; to enjoy a smooth finish.
Alethea pretends to be profound with purple prose, puns and alliteration.
I know you love me, even though you can't say it.
The signs were always there: the way you looked at me, the tension in your voice when we spoke.
And I love you. Have since the first moment I saw you, when I knew we had to be together.
Maybe I tried too hard.
Maybe you shouldn't have played hard to get.
Your face is serene as I crawl into bed next to you, savoring what's left of your warmth.
I put the gun in my mouth. It's still warm, too.
At least now we'll be together.
Forever.
—Chris Doty-Dunn
i chew gum to force myself to not eat.
i wrap my tongue around the taffy.
i feel my belly empty and rumbling. i remember
the times i have eaten too much, my stomach
expanding, and i have been forced to vomit.
i am a child, i think. i am a child who has
been neglected. i am a child who has been beaten.
i am a child who has been taught to hate
myself for eating. i am a child who has
been taught to hate myself for being neglected.
i do not hate myself. i love myself. but i cannot
love myself when i am so hungry. how can i
love myself if i am never full?
but i do not know
what love is.
—Claudia Wyscoky
