Narrative Magazine

1 month ago | narrativemagazine.com | Carol Edgarian

Listen to Helen Gu read her poem: It’s sharp enough to pierce nine suns—           the knife my mother seizes in herwaxen hands. Next to the storm-stained window       muted with breath, the rusted tip beggingfor a body between the wooden frames. Beneath       the chrysanthemum light fogged with want, I imaginemy mother as a girl on the kitchen floor, knees       stacked like broken plates.

1 month ago | narrativemagazine.com | Carol Edgarian

Listen to Jake Welton read their poem: i’ll never be this beautiful again / bleeding orchid / face down in a pool of booze / sweat illuminated in whiskey-refracted light / to think this makes me a woman / rhinestones in my teeth / press-on nail that took some cuticle with it / all the things we do in bathroom stalls / our false uteri / always detachable and quivering / stitches never pulled tight enough / we are good boys / anything but human / good boys worshipping skin in the darkest parts...

1 month ago | narrativemagazine.com | Carol Edgarian

An Essay Share Facebook Threads Reddit Forward Print Copy link Listen to Dylan Trinidad read his essay: I worry about him sometimes, Dad mumbles as we drive away from Uncle’s house. Leave him be, Mom says, he’s doing the best he can. The car goes silent after that. I look back at the house. It’s farther away than ever. Uncle is a little odd. That’s what everyone says, anyway. Maybe it’s the way he often loses his balance or how he always smells like smoke. Most people ignore it. Not Dad, though.

2 months ago | narrativemagazine.com | Tom Jenks

A Memoir Share Facebook Threads Reddit Forward Print Copy link I first met him in the fall of 1972. I was one month free of the army in Arizona, the government having decided there was an overabundance of lieutenants and that letting me head off to graduate school at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop would be just fine.

2 months ago | narrativemagazine.com | Mimi Kusch

You want to put your darkness in me. All of it. As if it always belonged to me. Ruthlessrattlesnake of a man. Riding shotgun downthe highway, not ashamed. What could possiblypossess you? To think an entire night could fitin me. Slip inside the black sky’s haunches and limbs. The patient stars with their glittery thighs. The forearms. Deep in the heart of Texas. I could ruin you. Spend an afternoon with my headon your chest. The wild-wild-west of you sleeping