Corey Holzman

Humans Crave Order

*Apologies for another long one. I decided to try my hand at CNF. In 1960, a sixteen year-old boy receives a bullet to the brain on a residential street in a small town in New York. He is shot by a police officer. The boy dies eight days later. These are the facts....

The Taste of Stone

The sorrow song of the world pauses. All these small dark rooms with their secrets, treasures in the walls. A secret within a secret within a secret, something you can never know. There are many Petersburgs. Each of them black and tasting of stone. She was allowing...

Mummification

Dolores, wedged between the fetid hosiery of skin and marriage, sinks into beige, unravels and plucks from an invigorating circulation. Damn if she isn’t vertical as a dead marriage. Lunacy of intrusion. Too much noise. Fragments scatter her. Diffuse outside terror....

Hourglass

You’d think that in places where rain is more norm than exception, everyone would choose to always be prepared. But nobody carries an umbrella in Eugene and nobody keeps pace with time as it rushes by and stands still at the same time. How could we as it is we, not...

We Were Sort of Funny

I’ll meet you in a deciduous forest on the outskirts of Estonia. I want to know your sisters, brothers, half-sisters, perverted Uncle. Show me your dirt. Am I tightening my upper laterals through eight-hour headstands, feeding from coconut chicken, sexing the UPS...

Dear Students

Some thoughts so far. What I'm seeing and experiencing is freedom in the writing, not only form but language; combining things that usually aren't combined, putting events, images, and objects together that aren't usually found together. It's startling and so very...

Snippets

Houses, like people, aren’t always constrained to what they were designed to be. Some resist growth. Others expand beyond their original façade: add room, break walls, deepen foundations, and reach towards the heavens and open their doors in welcome. Owls are silent...

Let’s Play Red Flags with Lipstick Shades

Let’s Play Red Flags with Lipstick Shades Siren On the day of our first date, it’s gross outmuggy and rainyso you say, “If we’d gone to the other location, we would’ve had to sit outside.” His face is enraptured by yours. “I wouldn’t have minded.” “I would’ve.” “I...

The Two-Headed City

Before the invasion they planted their most beloved objects in their gardens. When the city was blasted, new roots fed on the past. The heartwood of trees was filled with pocket watches, dolls’ heads, love letters inked in cursive. Flowers bloomed with baby teeth. Her...

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