“The zoo ghost doesn’t let us sleep at night. His tears get louder and louder.” @happilander.bsky.social in @doesithavepockets.bsky.social www.doesithavepockets.com/fiction/mile...

“… you just want that storm to break, need to feel that thunder in your bones even if lightning gotta strike you first, you just gotta know — *can I beat that devil?* — before the sky boils and the rain whips, and …” @mynachang.bsky.social in Ghost Parachute ghostparachute.com/issue/januar...

“We will fight and tear and scream until our throats are raw. Beat our fists like knights who refuse to lose, after their weapons, their armor, is gone. No monster will stand a chance.” @pintsncupcakes.bsky.social in Ghost Parachute ghostparachute.com/issue/januar...

“… and whisper if only we all could …” @lumchanmfa.bsky.social in Ghost Parachute ghostparachute.com/issue/januar...

“Secrets wisp into ears and out the windows into the fresh air where, weightless and powerless, they can finally dissipate. ‘You’re my best friend,’ we say.” @chelseastickle.bsky.social in @lostballoon.bsky.social lost-balloon.com/2025/12/31/i...

“They say the moan of his sax is sexy but she knows it’s lonely.” The Sax Player by @charhamrick.bsky.social in Flash Frontier flashfrontier.com/december-202...

“You will always be a child here, this place where listening happens.” “The clock harbors a heart. It beats and beats …” “A life is looped yarn and slipped knots, chains and accidents. Bearable, you hope.” this by @melostrom.bsky.social in Prime Numbers Magazine www.press53.com/issue-281-fl...

“Trust me. I, who have neither / head nor heart, whose name is not mine but Girl.” the opening poem in More Flowers by @susanlleary.bsky.social, coming soon from @triohousepress.org

Nice way to start and end a year!

“... I retreated to my room, the ache like a bruise. I couldn’t get my tiny grasp around the heft of it.” @pleomorphic2.bsky.social in @haydensferryreview.bsky.social haydensferryreview.com/sumitra-singam

“The way I’d savor, lovesick, a stricken voice preserved on tape as if in amber. The way I banked those messages. Playing them over and again as proof that once, I had made him care.” @patriciaqbidar.bsky.social in @anotherchicagomag.bsky.social anotherchicagomagazine.net/2025/12/23/u...

“I’d assumed he was referring to the aesthetic aspect of my skeletal structure, perhaps complimenting me on high cheekbones or a soft jawline, without directly saying so. But then one day he asked …” @jekwriter.bsky.social in @mrbullbull.bsky.social mrbullbull.com/newbull/flas...

“It was much better, she says, in the [calendar] [cyclones] when the [human] [doctor] took you gently by the [hand] and spoke to you with …” @mattkendrick.bsky.social in @thecitronreview.bsky.social citronreview.com/2025/12/22/e...

“Here’s a truth: you’ve fallen for a conspiracy. The heart is not the real heart of the body, it’s the stomach, but stomachs are ugly when you peel the skin back.” @moisesthehuman.bsky.social in @thecitronreview.bsky.social citronreview.com/2025/12/22/p...

“And then. We crawl out into the night, its cold black air, search lights behind us.” @claudiamonpere.bsky.social in @thecitronreview.bsky.social citronreview.com/2025/12/22/b...

“A moon rises over snowfall one night and thinks itself a sham.” “And this the dark moon knows. It is neither light nor blanket.” A New Home by @eileentomarchio.bsky.social in @necessaryfiction.com necessaryfiction.com/stories/poin...

“You would have to go out some strange way …” @kossworks.bsky.social in Chiron Review

I love this @sfreligh.bsky.social story I first read in Milk Candy Review and I love hearing Sarah read it and I love @podcastmicro.bsky.social happy 5th @drewhawkins.bsky.social and Dylan and team! micropodcast.org/podcast/klei...

“… and he will and I will, and he will and I will, and …” @sudhasubraman.bsky.social in Milk Candy Review milkcandyreview.home.blog/2025/12/18/i...

“…grape-scented lip balm, a mental image of Lauren’s bird-bone clavicles, her diary/scrapbook/photo album, mascara, the memory of her grandfather/pastor yelling that she couldn’t be baptized after all …” @heatherbelladams.bsky.social in Milk Candy Review milkcandyreview.home.blog/2025/12/11/w...

“And how would she ever be gracious, bending to pat a page boy’s head when she didn’t really know what the word gracious meant? How would she ever know the way of being a bride?” Frankie McMillan in @moonparkreview.bsky.social moonparkreview.com/issue-34-win...

“… I know I’m your only sister and you felt you had to ask for a toast despite your misgivings, but maybe if you didn’t always have misgivings about me I …” Your Perfect Day by @jacqdoyle.bsky.social with art from Angel Dionne in NUNUM online.fliphtml5.com/kmmwt/drrt/#...

“He knows all about the colour blue, all about its folds and shadows, and He hums Blue Velvet in my ear while Mom hisses through the line you’re married now, goddamit.” Blues by @dawnwriter.bsky.social in NUNUM online.fliphtml5.com/kmmwt/drrt/#...

“Endorsed by many leaders of the free world, these patented ears boast an advanced option which eradicates cognitive dissonance, allowing you to double down on your beliefs and …” @kiklodge.bsky.social in @gooseberrypielit.bsky.social gooseberry-pie.com/advanced-opt...

“My husband Gerald reached out to caress the pot’s bumpy, dynamic surface with an eagerness I haven’t known for some time.” Brett W. Summers in @gooseberrypielit.bsky.social gooseberry-pie.com/hiding-in-th...

“I balance, unassisted – that’s the important part – as I put one leg into my sweatpants, realistically the only pants this man has ever seen me wear, and then the other.” @megancannella.bsky.social in @gooseberrypielit.bsky.social gooseberry-pie.com/the-enduring...

“A cute wife, three thriving kids, and a surgical practice with appointments booked months in advance, so what did he need a disco in the Jersey suburbs for?” My Mother’s Friend, the Doctor + 1 by Tina Barry in @gooseberrypielit.bsky.social gooseberry-pie.com/my-mothers-f...

“We look past each other, neither breathing in each other’s direction, not daring to break the protective shields that have held our marriage together for ten years …” @ruthabrandt.bsky.social in @gooseberrypielit.bsky.social gooseberry-pie.com/how-am-i-to-...

“… it feels like a private moment and I wonder if I should leave but she grabs my arm and …” Rebecca Tiger in @gooseberrypielit.bsky.social gooseberry-pie.com/the-woman-of...

“Like after Mom left, and I said the world was coming to an end then, too, and he said not for him it wasn’t, two people could experience the same thing in different ways, and it infuriated me, because …” @michellewilson.bsky.social in @gooseberrypielit.bsky.social gooseberry-pie.com/plague/

“… because when the tears dried we dug deep and we found the worst words of all, the true words, the ones we could never forget the other had said, the words we could never take back.” @sagreene1.bsky.social in @gooseberrypielit.bsky.social gooseberry-pie.com/shipwrecked/

“… a boy could navigate to the New World …” @chriscottom.bsky.social in @gooseberrypielit.bsky.social gooseberry-pie.com/the-joy-of-s...

“The current carries the box away quickly and my son sobs, saying he was just getting to know him, why did he love him so much only to lose him, how is this fair?” @madelineanthes.bsky.social in @gooseberrypielit.bsky.social gooseberry-pie.com/current/

“It all seemed ‘almost normal’ until …” lucindakempe.bsky.social in @gooseberrypielit.bsky.social gooseberry-pie.com/everything-w...

“All morning its strange monologue chants the vowels of threat and fear; by noon the rooms darken for rain, the windows sealed like lids on lungs ...” The Everlasting +2 by @gary79.bsky.social in @gooseberrypielit.bsky.social gooseberry-pie.com/the-everlast...

“Mythili feels herself shattering, grabs on to the pieces of herself as they fly past. The vibration in her chest builds. Mythili waits for the glue that she hopes is coming.” Mother Karma, a novella-in-flash by @pleomorphic2.bsky.social, published by @publishedbyjake.bsky.social (Sumitra! ❤️)

“I held his hand, saw the shortness of his lines, the crazy dissections, the fractured groves marking past trauma. I wanted to take his pen and redraw the lines into wings.” @sabrinahicks.bsky.social in @stanchion.bsky.social

“I have planted a garden up there on the diving board. It’s tight, but it fits …” “… light as a cloud, heavy as …” @jenniferfliss.bsky.social in @stanchion.bsky.social

“And this is the spark, this is what turns your eyes from against me to with me …” “And now, I’m no longer wondering and about your wondering, now I’m only wondering about my own kind of wondering …” and “Keep going back because” it's Ex! @coocoo4afropuffs.bsky.social in @stanchion.bsky.social

"When the rescue attempts fail, you are left for the next one to dress and paint you up.” "The man regards your rumpled dress, your white go-go boots." from Before the Election in Pardon Me for Moonwalking by @patriciaqbidar.bsky.social published by @unsolicitedpress.bsky.social (congrats friend!)

"... so, okay, the duck had a good reason to be in the elevator. But still. He looked shady." @taracampbell.bsky.social in @gonelawn.bsky.social gonelawn.net/journal/issu...

“How can you distinguish 1001 distinct works of art in such a superlative way? How did they make this list? It was before algorithms. Did they sort songs into broad categories of 100 and then, within the category, randomize?" Pierre Minar @publishedbyjake.bsky.social jakethemag.com/1001-new-jer...

"Something about the snazzy shade of yellow and the way his skin peeled away from his body. It felt like his truest essence." The Christmas Banana + 1 by Kevin Sampsell in @xraylitmag.bsky.social xraylitmag.com/xmas-stories...

“We high-fived. Sang along with Stevie. *Stand back, stand back!* Nothing would stand in our way. Our wild hearts. Our crystal visions." @writesofkathryn.bsky.social in @trampset.bsky.social trampset.org/keep-your-vi...

"How when he left us, his body cookie-cut the light from the doorway and he laid a ribbon of finger on his lips, his eyes bright with their own celebration. And how we held our fingers to our lips just like his, a promise to ..." L. Sovierio in @trampset.bsky.social trampset.org/little-helpe...

"She’s smart and self-aware and dresses like she’s permanently one playlist away from an emotional revelation. I can only assume the consultants stalked her social media. (They absolutely did.)" @mallorysmart.bsky.social in @trampset.bsky.social trampset.org/ill-be-right...

"I think about that now. Almost forty. Married. A house of my own. Happy." Tyler Dempsey in @trampset.bsky.social trampset.org/in-praise-of...

“Reporters claimed this Paleolithic second coming came as no surprise. This screen-weary generation was bound to crumble at some point.” @bdcutkomp.bsky.social in @bendinggenres.bsky.social bendinggenres.com/return-of-th...

“I feel an increasing urgency to scream but it leaves my throat as more of a wail/song, a whale song, for when the whales stop singing and we’ll be the ones that must preserve song. Of thee I sing, but not well...” @joekap64.bsky.social @bendinggenres.bsky.social bendinggenres.com/my-default-v...

“After exactly 1 week, 2 days and 17 hours, the number began to decrease. 1801. 1779. 1643. Historians were consulted on significant events of those years. 1385 threw everyone for a loop.” @ramccafferty.bsky.social in @bendinggenres.bsky.social bendinggenres.com/the-digital-...