Glue

by Phil Temples

You are the glue that holds us together.

It was one of his favorite things Hubert would say when he was alive. In reality, it pissed her off to hear it. She was the one who sacrificed her wants and needs for the relationship. She was the one who frequently made do without. She was the responsible of the two.

Yeah. I was the glue that held us together, alright.

It seemed only fitting, then, to mix Hubert’s ashes with the spackle compound to patch the crack in the kitchen wall.

You can be the fucking glue for once, asshole!

Bookmark

by Benjamin Marr

Growing old inside the ribcage of the dragon I slayed decades ago. The blackened bones now cold to the touch; drafty and freezing. The young lady I rescued now long gone on another planet a lifetime away.

I wonder if she felt as alien as I always have. Leaning up against a UFO in the park. A passerby making a joke, “Do you come here often?”

I walk to the library where we used to meet so long ago. I find the last book she read beside me before she moved away. Unfinished, her bookmark a first step to finding her.

Fallacy

by Lucas Hubbard

He had only one rule at Caesars: Bet on black.

His second rule was leave on a win. Revised: Leave on the next win.

Then, play blackjack; okay, try slots.

Don’t use credit. No alimony.

He was walking home when the rising sun imparted his favorite rules: Go to Luxor. Bet on red.

Boy Man

by David M Wallace

You searched for something ancient. Something carved in stone. Fashioned in bronze. An arrowhead, a dagger, an amulet. Some Viking myth to keep you in perpetual boyhood.

But the old rituals failed you. You became disenchanted. An iconoclast. You vowed never to be fooled again. Cynicism is your faith.

It is almost always that way. We proudly take off our shirts and show the world the wounds we survived. Forgetting that the point was to die. To die and then get on with it.