BrainScramble Magazine. The world through our eyes. BSB i4: CRUSH, out now.

June drew by, warm days I ran through like the backfields. When the cicadas started to sing, school paused for summer recess, letting their cacophony overwhelm. I had nothing to do during the long, summer days but ride my bike and hope that my father came home for dinner. One afternoon, my friend Jackson took…

I have a choice: I can let it rot, or I can face it.  This is me facing it.

Careful, don’t slip on it. Don’t look too close. Don’t fall in.

It will be four years later. You will be walking down a tree-lined street after a day of classes, dappled sunlight shining softly through a layer of swaying branches, all lilting and turning and twisting in the breeze. There’s a good chance you will be deeply content, breathing in a lungful of fall air that…

I’m a computer, comprised of a series of zeroes and ones that code for the woman I am. The zeroes dot my big brown eyes and the ones outline my calculated, feminine form. I was made in a dank, machismo lab by a mad scientist. No, in a field of daisies by a woman named…

peel myself off pale, clinging sheets, lethargy pooling under my eyes, dark side of the moon hugging waterline, readying for frosted floorboard’s touch on mine.

Summer’s warm smile has faded under the clouds, and I’m watching the leaves glow as they float down from the trees’ arms. I begin to feel autumn’s cold breezes tickle my back as I fall to bed, and I regret complaining about August’s nocturnal heat. An entire life spent inside an oven couldn’t prepare me…

Beneath the angry, red lesions, beyond the reach of my fingertips, I believe there is skin as smooth as glass.

He posed the question innocently: “Isabella, what do you know about marijuana?” 

C. Was it worth it?

Short term is the first to go. We saw it in you and they search for it in Dad, however you check for that. We all took a test when I was younger; our blood in vials tagged on the counter. Mine was redder than my brother’s. Dizzy when I stood. Gauze and a juice…

Wait, Sweet Carnation! How dare you grow with such haste My dear friend has yet to return

Monday, May 27, 1912 Laid my mother to (permanent) rest a night agoGazed along her coffinetching it into my retinas University begins in a few months timeLabor and strife will ease my consciousfor if not… Thursday, Aug. 08, 1912 Oxytocin. Prof. G— enlightened us of this freshly unearthed hormoneIndicative of affection and pleasureWhat else is…

There I was, crouched like a cat with my palms to the concrete, trying to make out my reflection in the gray puddles since the pain was too searing to swallow. In my pocket I had four useless aspirin, one expired credit card, and five and a half nauseating cigarettes. And no water.

I feel it in my whole body. My mouth no longer salivates for the food, instead mechanically clamping and releasing, willing my throat to swallow the soggy lump. My grandma eyes me.  Finish your food.

Her skin, once gleaming with coppery iridescence, is now riddled with new corrosion. Its sheen was replaced as years passed and She stood as an emblem of American pride, an ever-present reminder of what we hope to stand for. This change in Her skin makes Her no less alluring – Her green hue serves as…