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trampset,
a literary journal
Meat-Flavored Water
by Thad DeVassie...They say it comes with electrolytes. Even the chosen typeface for the word electrolytes! looks exciting and exuberant, and the sound of it rolling off the tongue conjures up images of tiny prizes floating in the fluid.
4 minutes ago2 min read
Which Starseed Are You?
by Sarp Sozdinler...First: remove all the mirrors in your home. Hide them in the crawl space, bury them in your landlord’s garden, shove them in the backseat of a stranger’s car.
4 minutes ago3 min read
The Night the Mongols Arrive to Sack the City
by Emily Rinkema...The Mongols don’t notice me right away. I’m wearing sweatpants, wool socks, and a Dogs are My People hoodie, which I haven’t taken off since I checked in two days ago, alone.
4 minutes ago5 min read
Author Bio
by Pravin Vemuri...Unsurprisingly, also unwittingly, he turned to atheism by seven.
To existentialism by sixteen.
To hard drugs soon after.
4 minutes ago3 min read
A Jar of Dirt
by Mitchell Ny...We lie on the switchback, you atop my chest, and become immovable—like my nerves had been pulled gently from my navel. I am denervated meat and cooked clay.
4 minutes ago3 min read
In Praise of the Non-Linear
by Tyler Dempsey...If I cared about linear progress, I would’ve never gotten picked up by a plane hitchhiking.
Had I taken my friend’s offer to drive me from Anchorage to Denali in early-May of 2017, after arriving in the 49th State from a winter in Missoula, MT, I wouldn’t remember a single damn thing of that trip today.
Dec 5, 202512 min read
Wound
by Abhinav...That was the day childhood ended. Time no longer a yard but a funnel tilted downhill and revenge suddenly a possibility, not just desire. I knew I could do it. She saw it in my eyes. She knew I could do it.
Oct 31, 20254 min read
The Carwash Essay
by M.M. Kaufman...There is as likely a chance as not that under those giant wipe-o-matic’s you side-step into another reality. Maybe in this one you love yourself. At least in the reality that brought you here, you showed up for yourself. That’s a start.
Oct 30, 20257 min read
Brother dates a white girl
by Claire Lee...The word bubbles under his skin, then pops,
dissipating into his blood like soap,
air. Brother’s tongue is dry
as desert, doesn’t feel the slow, heavy
heartbeat need to wet it.
4 minutes ago1 min read
narcolepsy can be a gift if you remember not to care
by Ben Starr...Until he could fall asleep while he was already sleeping, burying sleep deep inside pockets fast asleep, tucked away like the hand-painted nesting dolls my grandmother brought with her when she swam the Atlantic.
4 minutes ago1 min read
The Beck and Boy
by Ewen Glass...is not a pub, it’s a stream, meandering black circles halved by footbridge. Kids rhyme their way past skulking little duckies
4 minutes ago1 min read
Sweet Tooth
by Jason Davidson...and I
thought I heard glass breaking and wondered if I
would ever eat chocolate again and wondered if I
would remember the language of this compromise
4 minutes ago2 min read
Macro Minds, Micro Talks with Mandira: Writer and Poet Abhinav
Interview by Mandira Pattnaik...
"I like poems that feel like a fever dream, and I like poems that feel like a snapshot of eternity."
7 days ago8 min read
Kate's Kite
by Paul Chuks...Kate’s eyes were blue as though they were molded from the sky and plugged straight into her eye sockets. The black and white spots were an added spirituality...She was black in the way the night did not mean to be.
Jun 264 min read
Why the Contemporary Writer Cannot Escape the Presentist Dilemma
by Mandira Pattnaik...Yet, as the years pass, my writing has been increasingly reflective of the present, the world we live in, its people, its rules. As you can imagine, my stories have been rather sad as a result. My last two fiction publications had children caught in the crossfire in an active warzone and “honor killing” practiced in India at the center of the narratives.
Jun 256 min read
A Writer’s Guide on Rage, Reflection, and Retribution
by Mandira Pattnaik...I understand that there is an ethic of anger — a secret code. It frequently slides into unreasonableness, and one may sometimes misdiagnose the source. It is not without peril to play with the “fire” within
Nov 13, 20256 min read
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