Short, Fast, and Deadly

Firebug

Innocent, you. No matter. They blamed you for the fire. You blamed them. You punched then pulled back with a bullet fist that hot wind through the broken window's face, dripped red to the carpet. The field burned away fast. Firebug, they said. Fuck you, you said. It was your hide peeled back from the knuckle. Not theirs. They even blamed you for bleeding.
 
by Sheldon Lee Compton of Virgie

Punctuated

You be the period
    staunch
        observed
            infallible
 
I’ll be the comma that came before
    slight
        overlooked
            and (more often than not)
                inappropriately used
 
by Leigh Anne Hornfeldt of Georgetown

Wading Ashore

One day the water went bad. Crabs and sea turtles swarmed to shore, gibbering in strange tongues. No one knew why, but soon we began to see. The blackening of the tide, and the strange mists and clouds that accompanied. Fishermen missing. A moonlit shape huge and slow. Strange noises in the night--the sound of piers buckling and ship masts snapping. A slow laugh, deep like the sound of cannon fire from beneath.

 
by Jacob Garbe of Paducah

The Self is Mine

I snap my head sideways and start to bite my right bicep. I stop. A string of spit connects my mouth to my arm. I remember vomiting Sugar Smacks on the door of my homeroom in middle school. I blame the string of spit for connecting my brain to a bad memory. I blame my bicep for being so close. I immediately forgive them and wipe away the spit so I can wonder about the things my body doesn't understand.

by Jarrid Deaton of Hueysville