SUPPORTED BY RCW The White Review Short Story Prize is an annual short story competition for emerging writers. The prize awards £2,500 to the best piece of short...
It is summer and we are still married. Law dictates that we can pitch a tent wherever we want....
Mall parking lot becomes dodgeball court, 2 vs 20
Opposition’s fitted sheet fingers cover king-size stones
Boys’ backs clamp against the storefront window
Their propeller limbs swatting, foreheads pouring blood
and sweat like broken soda dispensers
Spectators flaunt their yellow-corn teeth,
as they sing Boom Bye Bye; supporters
whispering invocations and protective medleys
Not once did the boys cry out for God
Police wait for the whiff of oak coffins
before they whisk the boys away in their Jeep;
and the names of all the girls I crush on at school
clank like crockery, 11-year-old-me vows to avoid
bursting lips and wailing skin