Flash Fiction: A Study of Enemies-to-Lovers, by Rose S (MATURE CONTENT)

We kiss. The first things I taste are blood and sweat, the flavor of the vitriol that soaks our past and the war of our wills. But underneath the iron and salt, I find an unexpected, unnerving softness. I expected his lips to slice like razors. I wanted them to snag on my lips like barbed wire as I pulled away. A part of me that resists this, that wishes I had never kissed him, that wants him to stay evil, is waiting to be proven right. But the more closely I examine that softness, the deeper it becomes. It recedes away from the realm of illusion. The part of me that waits for him to be proven inhuman shrinks and crumbles, laced with destabilizing veins of empathy - his lips are fleshy, chapped, and malleable - human, like mine. 

I feel his body under my hands as I lean closer into him. The lines between us seem to blur more and more by the second. His hands land on my shoulders where they become my arms. I think my mouth opens first, but before it really matters who started it we’ve begun to slide against each other, doing things to each other’s mouths than enemies, or even friends, should not really be doing. The inside of his cheek tastes like vinegar and fruit. I find that I’ve sucked away the taste of sweat from his lips and now his skin is almost sweet, like I can taste the glucose from the cells that I’ve ruptured with the friction of my mouth against his. 

There’s almost no space between us now. When I tilt my head, he counters as if it were choreographed. I don’t know who’s leaning into who. Hands move across clothing as if we already know what we’re doing. I don’t know what we’re doing. I don’t want it to stop.

Magazine Update: Complete Submission Guidelines!

Hi, all! Since the editors have been getting some specific questions about our submission guidelines, we thought we'd post an updated version that will hopefully answer them:

Submit by emailing your work to lit.space.submissions@gmail.com. 

We accept all genres of original art, writing, and music created by people ages 12-19 from around the globe.

Your submission should include your first name, either the first letter of your last name or your full last name, the title of your work, and its genre.

Your work should be your own. If your piece was inspired by someone else’s, please credit them! This includes source material for collages or blackout poetry.

All content published on our website falls within the approximate range of a PG-13 rating. If your work covers slightly more mature topics, it may still be published, but with a content warning.

Written submissions should ideally be under 5000 words. We do accept longer submissions, but it’ll take the editors longer to read through your work, and we might ask you to re-submit a shorter excerpt from your piece.

You can submit up to five pieces at once (of any medium or genre), but this will likely result in a longer response time for your work. If you submit up to three pieces, you'll be guaranteed to hear back from us within a few weeks!

If you have any questions regarding our guidelines, comment below or send us an email! 

We're so excited to continue reading your work! Every time the editors read through a new batch of submissions, we're blown away by the quality of your work. You inspire us daily, and getting to post your work is the highlight of our weeks. Keep on creating.

Poetry: Ocean Scars, by Jack J

those ocean grey eyes of yours staring
into the space between us, screaming
into this horizonless black
of ocean and sky cut
into one, like daisies
in a chain,
like survivors –
that zealous rain, coming in strong enough and at the right angle to capsize us. the type of rain to drench
you through your overcoat on ruined commute home. when you are sprayed by the garden hose and it
stings so you scrunch up your face and bring up your hands to the glassy blade of water so that it goes
away. we scrunch up our faces and it (that sting) doesn’t go away. and if we live we are cut into one, like
daisy chains, or survivors. these things, like kintsugi, I tell you, do not have scars, for these things are too
beautiful to have ever bled.
you, as hell swims through these waves,
give her your oar and she swallows
(her gulp: the crack of thunder) and you decide
the next best thing is to
hold on
tight
and as hell rides out and into the night and
we sit in the eye of the storm, yours flicker up
and something that wasn’t there goes away – meadow
green, those eyes of yours, bright and
beautifully pronounced, and, in the calmest stretch of water yet it
is realised, how beautiful everything could be
from here, these ocean scars.
did you ever find those patches of daisies
and pluck them from their flowerbeds
to weave into a bittersweet chain
or crown of dead living thing?
I did
and as hell rides out and into the night
your eyes escape again and so
I join you in looking at those red callused hands, the lines on your palm and the joints are so white against
the dirt. thinking: what have we done? your hands, with those strong but elegant fingers, the knuckles
pronounced but by no means bony. we are moved through the long eb and flow – her push and pull –
bringing us out and, without a moment’s warning, back in. when you were small and moved up and down
in the bath as the water waved across the length, the long eb and flow – the push and the pull – and you
felt it in your stomach and then you would wait, sitting still in the bath, and the water would settle.
thinking: will the ocean, like a bath’s water, ever settle?
and though I still have my oar,
as the storm comes in again, and the rain heavier and fiercer
than before, there is no use anymore. though I tried and
I did

and as hell rides out and into the night
we are smaller than ever before.
she takes us so high, and we crash back down,
the whitecaps turn clear in our
little yellow boat, the waves shatter as we
interrupt their course.
our grandma loved to watch
choppy ocean on
stormy night
do you think
she is watching us
now?
a wave comes over us.
there is no use anymore.
I look up to you.
wave crashes like cold hell over us
filling our little yellow boat.
I look up to you, cold and wet
like a stray dog with bits of seaweed
knotted into fur and sand encrusted
around the eyes, and
you are not there anymore.

Memoir: Excerpt from Rain, by Sophia R

What was it about the wind and rain that made her want to cry? Not an unhappy cry, not a blissful cry, not any cry in particular, just a cry. Cry as the clouds wept and the hills exhaled. She walked slowly, not to any destination. Around her, heads were bowed, feet were rushing, avoiding puddles, trying to make it inside the even grayer buildings. Her glasses fogged up and started to drip. She couldn’t see, but why would she need to? As she avoided the rushing feet by stepping in the puddles, she noticed that she was walking the same route she always took when she felt like crying. It was never intentional, but she always ended up on that secluded bench. She lay down with her face up to rain and let it fall, and the sobs broke out. She stayed there until the sun cut through the clouds. Her face was a mess. She knew she couldn’t go back like that, people would ask if she was ok, she would have to respond. How could she answer that question? Just as the heads around her had done when the rain was falling, she pulled on her hood, bowed her head, and made her way to the gas station at the corner, washed her face, and slowly began to make her way home.

Photography/Digital Art: Ghostly, by Olivier N