“… even if I have to wait all over again in the cold slug of a queue when I return, it doesn’t matter because there’s something settling in my heart right now …” @kiklodge.bsky.social in @doesithavepockets.bsky.social www.doesithavepockets.com/fiction/kik-...

“‘I knew I smelled something mom-ish,’ one of them said, rolling his eyes.” @lorimbarrett.bsky.social in @doesithavepockets.bsky.social www.doesithavepockets.com/fiction/lori...

“It’s a message to me. Saying without saying. I could tell you how I refuse to respond.” @allisonfieldbell.bsky.social in @fictivedream.bsky.social fictivedream.com/2026/03/02/m...

“You're not in a fairy tale, you're not a four-poster bed adorned with silk sheets, soft pillows, and those little plastic torches that look like candles. But …” @kathrynreese.bsky.social in @claudineliterary.bsky.social www.claudineliterary.com/kathrynreese

“… arms raised as we howl like coyotes, imagining the neon lights still burn, certain we can hear the rush of jingling coins …” @suzannehicks.bsky.social in @claudineliterary.bsky.social www.claudineliterary.com/suzannehicks

“Someone once took their shoes off for you. You were special. All of the world took place in Pennsylvania. Which was just a word among many …” Bare + 2 by @dieddisappointed.bsky.social in @bulbregion.bsky.social bulbregion.com/Three-Very-S...

“… But I’m learning to feel the depth, that there are ways to be that have been kept from me …” @kathrynreese.bsky.social in West Trestle Review www.westtrestlereview.com/spring_2026_...

“… where I first understood that the way you looked back at the men who looked at you could be dangerous, which my mother understands as karma …” @pleomorphic2.bsky.social in West Trestle Review www.westtrestlereview.com/spring_2026_...

“The woman at the counter looks at my hips like they are parentheses for my body.” @pleomorphic2.bsky.social in @flarelitmag.bsky.social flare-magazine.com/workout-star...

“‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ she asks. ‘I worry about you.’ You can bet it’s not just me she’s worried about when she asks that.” @jacqdoyle.bsky.social in @fictivedream.bsky.social fictivedream.com/2026/02/27/f...

“never divining the prophet you’d become, never mind how small her hand felt in your palm, her heart no longer here, the goodbye gone.” Aftermath by @jadjosey.bsky.social in Cast Your Longest Shadow, from Chestnut Review Chapbooks

“… and sometimes, you can see by the way she keeps one hand hovering at the other’s back, how she tries to hold on.” There is News Along the Ohio River by @bettysueblue.bsky.social, from @riverriverbooks.bsky.social

Jan/Feb speculative flash roundup + bonus recs!

"We bring our pieces of the past, our anxiety for the present, and our uncertainty about the future ..." Jeanne Lyet Gassman in Milk Candy Review milkcandyreview.home.blog/2026/02/26/w...

" ... said real men don’t wear condoms so they rolled them up like whispers in the backseat of their parents’ cars then blamed the town, the way it held and hated them ..." & what isn't believed in "around here" @sabrinahicks.bsky.social in @mrbullbull.bsky.social mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

"What agenda lurks behind her pleasantries? Behind her giraffe eyes, does she plot murder?" Sagar Nair in Milk Candy Review milkcandyreview.home.blog/2026/02/19/n...

"... which is to say, at the end of the world, I'll stay as water" Condolence by @briangyamfi.bsky.social in What God in the Kingdom of Bastards, published by University of Pittsburgh Press

"The dish groaned on windy days. Sparrows made nests in it, raised their young." Grandma Told Us Her Happiest Day Was When They Bought the Satellite Dish by @tcboudreau.bsky.social in Love You, Miss You, Goodbye Forever by TB, published by @stanchion.bsky.social

"...and sky said *yeah and motor cycles and war jets my favorite is treehouses* this sky who told you after the first time you kissed god got her eyes too small for her nose..." for when a favorite is called for by @lateration.bsky.social in Prepositions for Elijah, published by Maison Chaungeaux

“… Willa made things with her hands and showed them to him. Little versions of himself he hated, resented, they sprang to life from Willa’s hands and rushed at him, some of them carrying knives, all of their eyes painted and dead.” from Brother & Sister Enter the Forest by @rpmirabella.bsky.social

“It only takes a moment to etch his fate, but the moment stretches on—part of the misfortune I brought upon myself and future, unmade daughters.” @dango-ramen.bsky.social in Boudin/The McNeese Review www.mcneese.edu/thereview/la...

“... and hummed a line of tune, this in a foiled and derelict voice whose sound was liable to frighten her when it rose holding pieces of thoughts.” Scott Garson in Boudin/The McNeese Review www.mcneese.edu/thereview/ho...

“Proust was young when he lost it all and I’m young too, but in loss years.” @happilander.bsky.social in Boudin/The McNeese Review www.mcneese.edu/thereview/th...

“… while staticky Johnny Cash laments over a long black veil and a grave.” @charhamrick.bsky.social in @paragraphplanet.bsky.social paragraphplanet.com/yesterday.php

“A love that loves you in your goodness. In your badness. In your beauty. In your ugly.” @coocoo4afropuffs.bsky.social in Rooted rooted.substack.com/p/to-be-a-mo...

“In the end it doesn’t matter. They failed. And if one of us is going to make it, then …” @chelseastickle.bsky.social in @100wordstory.bsky.social 100wordstory.org/only-perfect...

“There is no talking me out of Ella. Maybe she will marry me, maybe she won’t. But she knows …” @keersteemack.bsky.social in @bulbregion.bsky.social bulbregion.com/Eat-the-Sadd...

“… I will grow my hair like loneliness. Memory will become the address lost with my father’s body. If I had loved myself too? ...” @chelsdingman.bsky.social in Indianapolis Review theindianapolisreview.com/if-it-is-not...

“… I begin in a room I cannot touch. One that is image husked of all drama. & do you believe me?” @susanlleary.bsky.social in Issue 80 of Bayou Magazine bayoumagazine.org/self-portrai...

“We find things most beautiful in the act of their dying. Bright red leaves. A refusal to eat. The child who goes to school & the mother who drives back from school alone. …” Susan! ❤️ Snow, Almost, Nearly in More Flowers by @susanlleary.bsky.social, published by @triohousepress.org

I have a piece with ghostlighting and the horse we rode in on in it in @gooseberrypielit.bsky.social. Thanks so much @jhhwriter.bsky.social for including this one in Issue 40. gooseberry-pie.com/on-a-ghostli...

"The big dog didn’t like the water. The little dogs dove right in ..." Little Birds + 1 by @sherrieflick.bsky.social in @gooseberrypielit.bsky.social gooseberry-pie.com/little-birds/

"We are already gone but we’re still here ..." @happilander.bsky.social in @gooseberrypielit.bsky.social gooseberry-pie.com/sign-of-the-...

"Each notebook cover ravished, wrapping torn with the care of children on Christmas morning. Each page filled with ..." @amymarques.bsky.social in @gooseberrypielit.bsky.social gooseberry-pie.com/subito1/

"Your eyeliner is too thick. Boy George did it best, and the trans woman at the health food store is better than you." @kossworks.bsky.social in @gooseberrypielit.bsky.social gooseberry-pie.com/obituary-sis...

"... his look was so imposing and persistent that I froze, staring intently at a nearby telephone pole, pretending not to notice his stare even though I felt every second of it ..." Andrea Marcusa in @gooseberrypielit.bsky.social gooseberry-pie.com/small-change/

"If only she were meeting a boy. Someone like Rupert or Hunter or Joe, who have cars and trust funds and play golf at the weekends." @laurabesley.bsky.social in @gooseberrypielit.bsky.social gooseberry-pie.com/seventeen-ye...

"... she will stop caring about those girls and she will feel happy ..." Sandra Arnold in @gooseberrypielit.bsky.social gooseberry-pie.com/one-day-one-...

"... it’s a way to take our minds off Jonestown, blizzards, test-tube babies, until ..." & Gene Rayburn @karenkay.bsky.social in @gooseberrypielit.bsky.social gooseberry-pie.com/in-2025-my-h...

“I’m squeezing fruit like I’m touching the body of a new love while my heart is still longing for the familiarity of the one I’ve just left or lost.” @anniejowrites.bsky.social in @bulbregion.bsky.social bulbregion.com/Mangoes-and-...

“… and we just stood there on the curb outside the station and let her repeat it over and over and over.” “… but she shrugged it off as if it burned.” “… one by one, until …” @emilyrinkema.bsky.social in @wigleaf.bsky.social wigleaf.com/202602things...

“At first, the kids worried about him whenever they heard him, but after a few weeks the sound became a Sinatra tune lulling all of us …” Memory, Sound Device + 1 by @jackbedell.bsky.social in HAWKEYE hawkeyemag.com/stories/bede...

“Their bones will become the roots of the trees of justice, their blood will water our hope and bring us the rivers of the change.” @bronwengriffiths.bsky.social in @bendinggenres.bsky.social bendinggenres.com/flowers-on-t...

“Casual, as if the question popped out, as if I hadn’t wondered where our relationship was going. You scrunched your eyes.’ @sudhab.bsky.social in @bendinggenres.bsky.social bendinggenres.com/thrum/

“I thought the show’s contestants would guess what playing card I was holding, or the name of my childhood pet. But, as they say, *alas*.” @seanennis.bsky.social in @bendinggenres.bsky.social bendinggenres.com/big-clairvoy...

“It is a bit about life and a bit about love.” @catherineobrien.bsky.social in @bendinggenres.bsky.social bendinggenres.com/can-a-meteor...

“… I shell shells, terns turn over a pink plastic carnation decoy bright as sushi, what once was a revolution, plastic, now an island in a vortex visible from space” Two-star Hotel, Myrtle Beach + 2 by @ediemeade.bsky.social in @oneart.bsky.social oneartpoetry.com/2026/02/08/t...

“… our bodies still, although we sing inside, but guilt overwhelms me, *how could we*, I say, and …” @happilander.bsky.social in @bloodhoneylit.bsky.social www.bloodhoneylit.com/mileva-anast...

“Sweet mouthful, this slow harmony, while your dad sings, Please release me, let me go, and your mom hums along and crochets you slippers.” “How long until the slippers grow holes? How long until the release, the letting go?” Melissa! ❤️💚❤️ this cnf from @melostrom.bsky.social in Blue Earth Review

“‘Will you stay on the phone with me until I fall asleep?’ I ask. I go into my room, pull the covers up and stay there. ‘Tell me a story,’ I say. So he does.” Burn, a novel by @stephanieaustin.bsky.social, out this week from @cowboyjamboree.bsky.social (congratulatons, Stephanie!)