Did you miss me? I was with Benjamin, see, and Foucault, Fannon, Bhabba, Crane, Hinojosa, and Trumbo, and together we spent our evenings uncovering privilege, panopticons, and simulacras. I reveled in these until my skin went from brown to green and I realized I could drop the mask and dance the mambo good. Now I shuffle for the masses until they forget about skin and focus on my kickass Dancing-With-the-Stars moves.

Watch out for my pirouette, now. Might just be good enough to make the whole world dance.

– And then she grasps with an unpleasant jolt of consciousness like licking the posts of a nine-volt battery, which she did once on a whim when she was ten, that she has never pushed herself to do anything, not a single solitary goddamn thing. – Jess Glass in Requited

– He no longer resembled her lover. The room, with the shades drawn, appeared to be cast out of the depths of Dante’s hell and the walls breathed a combination of flesh and metal like a living Giger painting. The floor moved like liquid lava. – Alec Bryan in PANK

– Aaron’s mother’s voice is demanding, too loud. It pricks at Ann’s eardrums, making her want to dig them out with a sharpened spork. And is she really asking her this? Too hot heat creeps up her neck and across her cheeks. Margie apparently wants to know if Ann’s screwing her son regularly. – Nicole Wolverton in Black Heart Magazine

– But, no, I’m not too religious though I do have a beautiful plastic replica of the Virgin of Guadalupe standing about four feet high in my backyard by my fig tree and to the left of my enclosed Jacuzzi. No Mexican can get through life without the Virgin even if he’s an atheist, agnostic or a born again Buddhist. La Virgen. Dark like los indios of Mexico. – Daniel Olivas in La Bloga

– It is 00.51 and I have kept the light on. It is 00.51 and I have kept the light on and I feel sick because I have eaten too much. – J.D.A. Winslow in Fleeting

While these stories are nowhere near as big as Spengler’s Twinkie, they’re just as profound. Enjoy.

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“I will tell you something about stories . . . They aren’t just entertainment. Don’t be fooled. They are all we have, you see, all we have to fight off illness and death.”  — Leslie Marmon Silko

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We get that he acted like a dick, Mark, but come on, man! He’s the Commander-in-Chief for God’s sake! Anyways, we heard about the suspension, so here are a few yarns to keep you occupied. Next time, remember: don’t ever rely on seven-second delays. Unlike these stories, those will always let you down.

– I swiveled in the other direction and took in the immense sectionals. I’d walked past them to get here. They loomed larger than my living space, and all had women’s names affixed to them: Lola, Thelma, Jenna, Lily, Stella, Simone, Catherine, Scarlet. None of them had my name. — Emily Schultz in At Length

– Lala’s on her phone, arguing with her mom in Korean. I’m in the passenger seat, breaking up bud on an Abnormal Psychology textbook, a class I think Lala flunked out of. — Lacey Martinez in Pitbull Magazine

– Chicanos, he says, gangs, Norteños. I kind of just zone-out listening to him. Maybe he’s right, but I’m worried he’s going to say something really messed up and the people around the bar will hear it and think I’m with him. I get the bartender’s attention. Same girl from the other day. — David Como in THIS Literary Magazine

– A talking woman was on the screen but they couldn’t hear what she was saying because Delores had turned the sound down. The woman’s hair was like a bubble that encased her head, with a large curl exactly in the center of her forehead. — Allen Kopp in /One/

– Blinded by headlight filaments, smell wet heat beating off motor, see driver open-eyed through windscreen condensation. Tyrespray soaks clothes; shutting it out and turning away, prepare your bones. Unbearable roar, and here it comes, now, the death blow, now! now… — Allen Gillespie in The Waterhouse Review

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