BY REBECCA CARLYLE

You can always begin again.

It is a singular notion that has echoed, rattled, slammed, and whispered through your mind with every step.

What would that be like?

The night sky calls to you as it always did, with the pureness of its beauty.

Will you be the same?

BY RACHEL LEANNE DELAURENTI

My father once told me that love and desire are like flames. He told me to be careful with my heart, that he didn’t want me getting burned. I think he knows from experience.

Sometimes when we talk, you can see him recoil from thoughts, as though his heart has been scorched and scarred from loving too hard, and he will never fully recover. If that’s the case, if loving you is going to burn me, then draw near me.

BY KAURA GRANDE

At sunrise he is filled with wild fire, flames flashing gold, so vibrant they illuminate the landscape. He is alive and his breath breathes warmth and life across the plains. By midday he is at his strongest, scorching the Earth, he burns with radiance, shines with fury, flaunts his heat.

BY REBECCA CARLYLE

The acrid smell of smoke burned through her nostrils from across the street. The middle-class suburban row of houses was darkened by clouds that hid the moon, all except for the single house that was ablaze. Even from here, she could feel the heat of the flames that licked the sides of the building. Her cheeks were flushed from excitement and exertion. It had been a battle to get outside of the burning house before the exits had become inaccessible.

Snap. Gone.

Screeching siren
songs snatch
me out of everyday daydreams
I escape to—

BY JORDAN NISHKIAN

You once heard that you could figure out which way was up by following the bubbles.

You weren’t sure when it had started, but the tinnitus that haunted your right ear had now wrapped around your head and entered your left. At first, it was something you only heard in silence—now there were days when the ringing was nearly debilitating.