One evening, damp and full of anguish, I arrive at a camp and basically fall apart. I want to talk to my boyfriend back home, but as usual have no signal. I start climbing on soggy leaves, moving higher, hoping. Finally, a few circles fill in on my screen and I call. His voice is like a hug, but as soon as we start speaking the raindrops start up again. Reluctantly I let him go and trudge downhill to the shelter, set up for the night. In an iPhone advertisement from when FaceTime was new, … Continue reading A Dream To Disconnect, by Mathina Calliope→
When I was a child, Moab terrain served as backdrop for macho trucks suddenly dwarfed like hood ornaments atop massive mesas, the sun blazing rays from which, within seconds, a Chevrolet logo would emerge. In a photo of Moab terrain, Doug half crouched with his bike on a flat rock precipice, the Colorado River murky in the canyon’s distance below its edge. In the frozen moment, a smile spilled across his face completing the image of energy about to explode into motion. I chose this photo for the cover of his funeral program. A year … Continue reading The Paradox Formation by Mary Pacifico Curtis→
Write what you know. That was the mantra when I was in graduate creative writing school. We were admonished to write from our own experience, not to try to reach beyond our boundaries and try to re-create worlds about which we had no real knowledge and which would, thusly, come across as fake. But like all mantras, this one has its limits. For instance, my first book, The Algebra of Snow, is about a mathematician alone in the Adirondacks in winter. Anyone being less mathematical than I would be hard to imagine—I struggle with addition. … Continue reading In Praise of Not-Knowing by Ginger Moran→
3rd place winner of Streetlight’s 2018 Poetry Contest Patina The things you forget are the stupid verbal confetti of old love letters, the weight of ancient matters settling the scales of justice around your shoulders like a yoke or a shawl, and it doesn’t matter, because you’re wearing it, for work or for warmth you don’t know. They’ve come to rest there, ploughshares or bodyrags of old words, leaving splinters or growing tattered—it doesn’t much matter. All tales grow old in the telling of them but still are yours, mine, ours, the dazzling, crumbling … Continue reading Patina by Pamela Sumners→
Jennifer Sutherland is the 1st place winner of Streetlight’s 2018 Poetry Contest An Elegant Variation One quiet Sunday we drove south on silver-leafed Charles Street, ducked into one of the gingerbread warrens between the university lawns and wondered at the late day’s water-light reflected in the leaded panes, the four-centered arches, the oriels, the pitched slate, and we watched the nannies in their strolling from chimney to chiminea as autumn wound itself toward sleep. As the bricks slid by I catalogued the ghosts of all the lives we might have made but for, and … Continue reading An Elegant Variation by Jennifer Sutherland→
2nd place winner of Streetlight’s 2018 Poetry Contest mi gemela i can hear avocado trees in the backyard, the hum of abuela’s sewing machine in the kitchen. the plastic chairs poke the fat of our thighs as we watch telemundo and eat arepas- hours escape us. night ripens and we lie in bed as the street lamps rest on our sabana. both of us not saying: i’m waiting for dad too. Alexandra Mendoza Routt is a native of Miami, Florida who’s taken on the big city to receive her MFA in creative writing at The … Continue reading mi gemela by Alexandra Mendoza→
I grew up telling it to whoever would listen—mostly that fell on my mother’s shoulders. At the breakfast table, at the dinner table, I proselytized with the fervor of a repenting sinner. And it began when I was only three. “Oh, oh, I‘m so be-cited!” I squealed like Horshach from Welcome Back, Kotter, after seeing my mom’s birthday cake all lit up with candles. “Nice pants,” I added, grabbing my pink, kid trousers for comfort. We all have a need to tell it, the big events of our lives, the small moments of our days, … Continue reading Listen Carefully by Karrie Bos→
Ingrid Jendrzejewski is the 1st place winner of Streetlight’s 2018 Flash Fiction Contest Mare’s tails and mackerel scales Make tall ships take in their sails. She’s studied the weather and knows about clouds which is why her lips are thin and tight. She does not want to tell him about the promotion. Tonight, she will prepare a nice dinner, but chop the onions too quickly. Blood from her little finger will mingle with Bolognese. When the sky fills with altocumulus and cirrus clouds, a warm front is approaching. Although the day might be pleasant, … Continue reading Weather Proverbs, Explained by Ingrid Jendrzejewski→
Emily Larkin is the 3rd place winner of Streetlight’s 2018 Flash Fiction Contest ‘I’ll have a shot of anxiety with mint, vanilla syrup, and crushed ice, and a pint of despair. With a lemon wedge.’ ‘That’s a very specific order—you’re obviously a man who knows his drinks,’ the bartender said. ‘Most people order straight off the menu. Are you sure I can’t interest you in a disappointment and bitters on the rocks? It’s the house special.’ ‘No thanks, as you said, I’m a man who knows my drinks.’ ‘Fair enough, one anxiety and despair coming … Continue reading A Fresh Shot by Emily Larkin→
Julie Gesin is the 2nd place winner of Streetlight’s 2018 Flash Fiction Contest It’s dark when he reaches home and opens the garden gate, shoulders vulnerable to the pulse of crickets that rattles the garden. Above, the streetlight buzzes, as it always did when they returned home from a play or dinner, sometimes talking, sometimes silent, but always in a state of satiated ease, knowing that all that’s left of the day is the comfort of their bed, the familiarity of each other’s body. He feels her hand in his like a phantom limb. After … Continue reading Neglect by Julie Gesin→
Streetlight Magazine is the non-profit home for unpublished fiction, poetry, essays, and art that inspires. Submit your work today!
