This Place is a Message

By LYDIA WAITES

If grief has a half-life, then Isla’s is nuclear and will live beyond her, beyond language.


RECENTLY PUBLISHED


14 Oct 2025

BACK OF THE ENVELOPE

Extreme close-up photo of an African American person's knuckle against a black background. The lines in the skin are visible.

Bihoods

By WARREN C. LONGMIRE

a story started three generations ago gassed you backwards. Left you the epilogue of a Ghostface b-side.

9 Sep 2025

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Collage of different photographs from images of leafcutter ants, with one large, zoomed in image of the ants underground in the background, and then rows of 8, 5, and 4 small square images showing: zeroed in pictures of the ants, ants on the leaves they are cutting, and clips of descriptions from AntWeb.

Ant Farm

By AHANA GANGULY

This is a reluctance to share language with the ants. To describe our lives as we do the ants’. We say about ourselves: industry, innovation.

29 Jul 2025

BACK OF THE ENVELOPE

Photo of a PCB being soldered, against a lavender background

Buzzkill

By T. J. MARTINSON

Delivery Bot: Buzz (#965)
Status: Error Code: 5.2 – CEASE ALL FUNCTION

8 Jul 2025

BACK OF THE ENVELOPE

A hyena stands in short brown grass with a gazelle horn in its jaws

Evolution

By FARAH GHAFOOR

Dear Honeyblooded, won’t you tune for me /
an ambered fate, a dance atop beauty

13 May 2025

BACK OF THE ENVELOPE

The photo looks down the middle between two long shelves of books in a library. There is a person crouching in between them, backlit by a window behind them. A ladder is also behind them.

Mole Galleries

By MARTIN PIñOL

Was there new information about the mole? Was the determination based purely on statistical modeling? I never received a response. I find it fitting. Biologists cannot reach the island. I cannot reach the biologist. All of us, arranged along a spectrum of restrictions. A series of silences.