FAR FROM HOME By JiSun Yang The young girl is at the Gimpo airport. It’s the biggest place she’s ever been in. She sees a man kiss a woman on the mouth. Stunned, she thinks, “Gross.” People walk with purpose here, carrying their belongings on their backs, pulling luggage on wheels, and performing the side-bending walk induced by a duffle bag too full to carry on one shoulder. This place is
Twilight sleep By Emma Powers Twenty years after my birth mother let go, I let go, my letter to her disappearing into a nondescript post office box. Our mailbox at home, beyond the hemlock hedge, would have reproached me. I was unable to reconcile my words of invitation with its familiar, aluminum throat, rusted along the seams from years of mountain rain and snow. I would have stolen
On the Table By Ali McNally If Korea was my genesis, then Korean barbecue is my scripture: The snap-snap-snap of the grill pilot light, the deep exhale of the periwinkle flame peeking from below the cast iron grate,
Time and Relativity By MPA Trigger Warning: This story briefly alludes to self-harm. Some man lived alone in a cave without much human contact for several months in order to prove that time is an invention. Unsurprisingly, that turned out to be completely unnecessary. The fact that clock hands move in a circle implies time’s infinite nature, which is why it often comes with the disclaimer of relativity. Infinity removes the possibility of hard starts
Phases By Jean Widner Water exists in three states: solid, liquid, and gas. It transforms easily. Steam condenses into liquid, which can be frozen to form ice, melted, and then heated back into a gaseous state. My adoptive mother, a registered nurse, believed I should know how to swim, but early on I was terrified of water. I’m now grateful, but when I was around three or four and took my first swimming lesson, I was not happy. Squealing with fear
Family Dirt By Danielle Orr I am the ground and I am also groundless. I am both and neither. I was 29 years old when I learned of my own adoption. On that fateful day my body and soul were obliterated by the meteoric information birthed of my pleading for answers deep within my own heart. The pleading boomeranged out into the universe and fell back to my
