abandon ceremonial possibilities and face death head on— for in those moments when you kiss death and come back to the dance you are...

Like the whisper of a prayer: you beg yourself to strip the comfort from your skin. Dear fingertips, I plead with you Get a grip on...

1st Place Judge Selection Like a great gazelle had been shot to the ground, I imagine the shape of his body like this belongs anywhere...

2nd Place Judge Selection Am I a speck of dust irritating the corner of your eyelid? Well, now you have rubbed me, and your eyes have...

If I can’t be a girl, at least teach me to write like Maya Angelou, and let my confidence strike fear into the beholder. Teach me, then,...

Everybody twisted their face at me When I told them my dad was an orange. The first day the school counselor Called home, Mom left me at...

With frostbit extremities and my neck craned, I watch the arborous fireworks of barren winter oaks vein a crackling black sky. Stars like...

I feel every Thank You is something to keep: every card, every Post-It, backs of bills, or receipts. Not birthday nor holiday cards, to...

Editor's Choice When I was young, we took our crumbs and tried to build a cake. The bags of chips were labeled “chips,” the cheese was...

Rain rolls off the ball of my nose and freezes on the matchbox resting in my hand. The now dampened box has cardboard walls that form a...

It wasn’t like heaven or nirvana. It wasn’t like Christmas or a birthday. It wasn’t like good or great. It wasn’t like wonderful or...

The first time I died, I was a soldier, hanging on the side of an armored truck, barreling through a vivid green jungle, bullets whizzing...

3rd Place Judge Selection The big gray two-family, one down from the corner, Is all but abandoned now. It stands three blocks from...

We have been trained to think about what is beautiful, and Many of our women absolutely require the visits of moths to fertilize them: An...

A little hand that belonged to a boy With a buzz cut and a scar over his eyebrow Shot into the air. What’s your other name? Your Chinese...

Anxiety hums through my pores like stink off an egg salad sandwich in the sun. What an ethereal reek, deep like the Brooke Street Quarry;...

I remember the very first time I saw one of those terrifying, wild things. I think about it when my ear is pressed tight against the skin...

There’s a little white cotton monster who lives up my sleeve, and it’s angry, tired, of hiding, beneath fabric, against wrists, behind...