He wanted to add “can take a punch” to the Skills section of his resumé. He wanted me to verify it was true. It wasn't. @AnnaLeaJancewic — Seven By Twenty (@7×20) August 18, 2014

“The screen door banged shut behind her. She scrambled up the dune, vanished over the top. It was right before dawn, when the stars are just starting wear thin, and I caught a dim glimpse of her jump from the summit. A split second of catching air. I imagined her hitting the sand running, like […]

“But it was too late by then, the dress like a Portuguese man-o-war and the fifty-six chicken dinners were bought and paid for.” Read it here: Marriage

“She started up with him because of his hands. They were practically identical to those of that other boy she’d known. She’d twirled her skirts and bit her lip, it was easy enough. She got those hands on her skin…” Read more here

“Little chickens, with eyes of real Baltic amber. You made them, thread by thread, stitch by stitch, and now they rustle bloodthirsty. Now they want for dreams. Yours are absent whenever you wake, a murky cavity in your memory. They diagonal golden beaks toward your scars, try to pluck them up like earthworms. They whisper to […]

“Crawl into the brackish mud and let your hands be pale and shatterproof crocodile jaws. Snatch him by the ankles and smother him under the violence of your pendulous flesh. Rip your skirts and moan. Moan like a museum full of moldy bones.” Read more: Mothering

“My bare legs warble summerly songs. Songs we knew by heart in forbidden orange groves, beneath graffitied underpasses. Submerged, they sound like your deaf sister on a hot vinyl car seat…” Read more: Pie.

“He keeps calling me a saint. He keeps telling me It can’t be wrong if it’s true love.” Read more here.