by Maximilian Martini Savannah Bolton Barefoot and bloodshot, he kneels in the yard and faces the house. In the dirt, between every blade of grass, lie innumerable diamonds. They reflect the light of day a billion fold, coruscating beneath the house’s one window. The diamonds were the window. And then the pane broke into infinity. — - Each diamond is a caustic little rainbow. He works to grip them tight between his fingers and bank them in the trash bag at his side. But they

by Meg Pokrass Nada Gamal 1. Eleanor Rigby stands in the hallway wearing her mother’s wedding gown. Once a year, she puts it on to admire the flow. She is solitary dreamer who belongs here because she doesn’t belong anywhere else. A secret janitor perpetually sweeping up rice in a church where a wedding has been. 2. She is the most famous lonely person in Liverpool. Or maybe she never lived in Liverpool, and she is lonely while listening to the Beatles’ song. She is a late-mi

by Mandira Pattnaik Briana Tozour Greetings on International Women’s Day, dear friends! I hope you’re finding ways to celebrate, no matter where you are. While this may not feel like a time to celebrate anything, let us remember that the hope and connection we foster with one another can bring comfort and light. It is not a holiday in India, where I live, and honestly, I’m baffled that it isn’t. How can we claim to honor women when several Asian nations, including China, Afgh

by Claire Guo Bank Phrom They say I came from a lineage of muckrakers, men and women who lived in the dirt of others. When I was born, I emerged from rot and magazine headlines, scornfully red and already screaming about extramarital affairs, about someone’s unpaid speeding ticket. My mother knew at once that I would be a successful journalist because I clamped my toothless mouth to her teat and didn’t let go, even when she smeared hot sauce over the reddened nipple. A fine s

by Rachel Weinhaus Casey Horner The first girl to kiss a boy was my best friend, Lauren. She was a full year younger than me, only in fourth grade when she kissed that floppy-haired teenager behind our cabin. She said his lips tasted like vanilla Chapstick. The first girl to lose her virginity was Sara, a girl I went to high school with. The tattooed man said he loved her. She wanted to believe him. Sara never loved the tattooed man, but I don’t think he meant his promise eit

by B. Montemayor David Pupăză let it be of mangoes. of hearts cast in stone. or else, inanimate objects with a hairpin’s mortality. i want to be the patron saint of women trapped in flea market paintings, their knowing gaze a mirrored stillness. perhaps a mise en abyme, an artistic abyss. the kind of death i’ll only get to know when i am canonized for my trivial deeds. let me be the patron saint of lost, defunct websites whose links wormhole into a 404 Error, where poetry in

by Matt Kendrick 은 하 the living-room carpet is a fever of wrapping paper scrunched into balls / it is Christmas day / Peter has bought a bicycle for his angelfish / Charlotte is staring at me as if I’m the last remaining Brussels sprout / her lips are loose from the ten o’clock sherry / the children’s are looser / they tell me I am old because I still use emojis / face with diagonal mouth emoji / face in clouds emoji / at dinner, Mother moans because we are an uneven number /

by Jon Steinhagen Photo by أخٌ‌في‌الله on Unsplash INTRODUCTION After what was done to Grady Seppellant (as of this writing he is still on display, and the birds have been at him), we have been tasked with the creation of this guidebook not only for the use of hapless strangers and curious tourists, but for ourselves, as many of us may want to venture out once again, for fresh air, for exercise, for liberation, and everyone needs to be as well-informed as possible before this

by Lauren D. Woods Ian Hutchinson I could be found on the bottom floor of a government building making spreadsheets. The important thing was to make the columns neither too wide nor too narrow, so that they filled the page and printed evenly. I learned to create clean squares with clean borders. No, not that kind. Those were being closed down everywhere. What I mean is that there was a sort of satisfaction in the quiet clicking into place of the spreadsheets and fitting and f

by Cuyler Meade Milad Fakurian I met a man last night. He had one of those faces you think you’ve seen before, but you just can’t place. We laughed and talked all evening. Oh, heavens, he was lovely. He asked many questions, not like other men who just want to blather on about themselves. He asked about my family, my children. I told him of my husband, George, and he didn’t seem threatened that I once had a man in my life. You don’t always get that. I let him put me to bed, b

by Mandira Pattnaik Samuel Regan-Asante Funny what can trigger my writing on a particular day — an image; a news item; a debate on a public platform on whether arranged marriages are a fair deal; a puppy I routinely see on the road but haven’t seen in three days (Is it ill? Or was it squashed under one of the rashly-driven cars?). For example, I started the week by pausing my mindless scrolling on three lamentation posts that appeared on my timeline. In one, a poet rued the p

by Paul Chuks eniko kis That evening the world seemed platonic, everything was perfect. The walls had no crack in them. The flowers were the blueprint from which others (in the physical world) were created, aged yet unwithered, the sky — a motif of blue that filmed my ancestors reading my poems amongst themselves in heaven. You snuck into my head and sat gently like God had sent you to keep my brain company. Although you were not privy to the biological implications of cohabi

by Abhinav Andréas BRUN It was late in the night, too late. Anyone who had a place in the world was already in it. Everyone else was shifting, in one queue or another. The train like a coil shifting in the dark, the dark of the earth shifting against vacant space, the space shifting in its own vacancy. Like memory shifts every time it’s wrenched into language. The platform a rectangular slab of white light, silhouettes slicing it drown in crumbs and murmurs. I was arguing on

by Diane D. Gillette Andras Kovacs The massacre wasn’t planned. Not exactly anyway. But it got lonely only coming out of our rooms to dance with future husbands whose hands couldn’t tell the difference between the smalls of our backs and the rounded curve of our rears. It got tiresome trying to make conversation only to be told to keep our opinions to ourselves. Perhaps if we’d been allowed to talk to someone other than each other, we might not have heard the call of the bria

by Jaime Gill Lolita Ruckert …you’d munch popcorn and settle in your seat while the opening titles play over the boy’s bus journey home through sullen Northern England, ominous overhead drone shots intercutting with images of the hero’s pale and anxious face (but this is not a horror film and the boy sits alone — earbuds in, eyes closed, forehead leaning against the clammy school bus window — listening to Lana Del Rey and imagining himself sprawled in a white convertible some

by Shiyang Su Will Turner When Odysseus woke from an ancient dream and didn’t recognize Ithaca, he limped along the loud, ashen sea, sobbing. In another translation, it was a whispering surf-line that he sealed his cries in. Odysseus, oblivious now to the lexicon of his homeland, grieved in the rhythm of the sea. The low wails lapping the shore, the tearing of rocks near the dark estuary —  Desire fluctuated between harpaleon (gentle) and argaleon (hard) by night and day. Eve

by Taylor Hamann Los NCI I an imaginary monster compounded of incongruous parts Doctor Moreau, are you proud? I stitched it together myself. Collected specimens & scalpels. Placed lavender bundles around its head so it could believe it was beautiful — & it was even as it shrilled in surrender, the sound both sweet & chilling. The echoes still reverberate through my chest, bouncing from bone to bone & leaving hairline fractures behind. You see, vultures pick through bodies, bu

by Ulrik Andersen WrongTog/Unsplash On the rare moments Ola sat still, you’d catch how handsome he was. His eyes would slip closed long enough for you to take in his long brown eyelashes that would curtsy down his cheeks, pointing daintily to his high-cut cheekbones, the straight crest of his nose and the bright blush of his lips, too red for a boy’s. In those moments Ola looked peaceful. Serene even. But then, a twitch would bubble up from below the surface, tugging a corner

by Paul Chuks Akira Hojo Syncretism can be mistaken for something legitimate, if defined simply as the assimilation or combining of ideas into a new whole. For what history has proven it to be, it is a process of alienation of people’s culture cum profane misrepresentation of their traditions via new improvised identity that serves the purpose of imperialism and colonialism. It is mostly done with religion. The task for the colonialists, after subduing their subjects physical

Caleb Steele We here at trampset are pleased to announce the following nominees for the 2025 Best Small Fictions anthology: “Nicknames for Sad Boys Echo the Longest” by Tommy Dean “To Missus Delilah, Who Killed My Sister” by Spencer Nitkey “Fellas, Is It Gay” by Ani King “When the Marauders Came” by Michael Czyzniejewski "The Alphabet Soup" by Sarp Sozdinler