I have short work in Pank 5. But I don’t read my own writing in journals. I read what else is in them. & in PANK No. 5, holy shit, a whirlwind. Click through to read some of the lovelies I met there:

Colleen O’Connor, from Choked (A Love Song):

‘You want to fall

in love so you

lengthen your noose

for two necks, fray

your ropes.’

Mindy Hung, from Eva:

‘A man once fell in love with my navel. He had other problems, of course. He had terrible acne and a wife who looked like a goose. His children, oddly, did not resemble her at all. They were, in fact, so beautiful that they were unreal–almost translucent.’

Kathleen Heil, from Vete a La Porra:

‘I understood as

fuck you

though that reveals not only

what I do not know

sino

something about my old

habit of hitting where

it hurts’

Megan Falley, from Scenes from a Courtyard Marriot:

‘I undressed

the complimentary pillow chocolate

while he turned on the television,

mumbled something about the expense

of room service.

I wasn’t worth it.‘

Elizabeth Hildreth, from Art of Killing a Party (A Translation of Art of a Party):

‘The art of killing a party is to explain why nothing can be explained because the world’s swinging with objects that aren’t really at the end of the rope. It’s like choking on a river while your parents are straddling each other in the next room over, thinking, wait…what was he supposed to be about?’

If you haven’t already, get this issue.