Prose
Time is Linear. Top Story - November 2025.
Time is all-forgiving so I’ve named myself after her. I’ve built an endless soul inside of a shell and slapped my fingerprints on every inch, hoping somehow they’ll find it when we’re gone. I don’t know how to tell you that I would cut open every organ in my doll of a body just to prove the absolute fervor that flows through cells combining pink, and I don’t know if it’s too late to say it. Time would stay, so I will, too. She can’t feel conflicted because there’s only one destination, one task, one rhythm to stay awake. I thought if I created a world, it would keep its eyes open, or at least tell me when it starts to get sleepy. It’s okay to take a nap, but I don’t know what I’d do if the gears stopped turning altogether. I don’t know why the confusion is the most arduous of all these mixed up destinations, but I’ll go downtown to change my name tomorrow. That should bring me a little closer, I think. I’ve built something so exquisitely strange with all these smudges and cells and bruises of seconds, that I’m not sure I could take it apart. I’m not sure I could leave it here to be found in ruins, or ensure the glass jars of my ever-hearts will not go rotten the second I’m gone, or you, or our children. It’s not the building, nor the signatures nor the nails nor the shelves, it’s our bodies that make this collective soul breathe in time. Without us, time does not exist beautifully; or, at least it won’t while I’m still waiting for the fire to be put out.
By Olivia Dodge3 months ago in Poets
Imposter in a gingerbread house . Top Story - November 2025.
I'm a little more than just trapped inside this gingerbread house, made of flour, butter, molasses, and aromatic spices. While I could eat my way through and out, I remain. Sitting on gumdrops, showering myself with M&Ms, whipped by licorice ropes. I am an imposter. I belong on the naughty list.
By Caitlin Charlton3 months ago in Poets
Never
Now I’m thinking about all the times you never saw me, when I didn’t even care. I became so me that I forgot about you, writing in my top-bound spiral notebooks on campus, on the lawn, stretched out on my blanket, barefoot, books and words and the music of the wind in the trees, friends dropping by to chat. Smoking and drinking coffee.
By Harper Lewis3 months ago in Poets
