Elisa Gabbert

I read a headline that said, “Human hair behind pigeons’ lost toes, study finds.” / I thought it meant that pigeons were growing human hair . . . behind their toes, their lost toes? / I felt sick with fear. / I read a headline that said, “Just thinking about bright objects changes the size of your pupils.” / So how do we know that we’re actually experiencing anything?

Kate Petersen

I am not opposed to getting hurt, I told him, but only with good reason.

He was sitting on the same couch I was when I said this, but far enough away, because reasons abounded.

Laurence de Looze

When I was in seventh grade in Chicago, a girl in my class who had moved to the US from Spain, Paloma Larramendi, stood up one day and gave her full name. . . .

What she recited was: “My name is Paloma María Eugenia Gabriela González de Fernández de Mutis de Larramendi.”

Jeneva Stone

The act of being taken. Away, perhaps.

In Greek mythology, abduction precedes violation. For example, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, woman after woman is removed from a place of safety and transported elsewhere for violation, by ship or chariot, sea or land, or the ethereal machinations of the gods.