HEAVE by Yulia Kravchina

            A new house did not mean a new home. Settling into the floorboards and turning on the heat, I walked across the new space feeling relieved to be alone for the first time in my adult life. It was empty and cold, however, I saw potential for a cozy space that I could call my own. Nevermind that it was rented and a few strange spots and cracks oozed into your vision as your eyes scanned the room. Nevermind that. It was a place for me to finally escape from people and disappointment.

THE PATH HOME by Nausheen Ahmed

Everyone had finished setting up their tents and were starting to gather by the fire pit.  Sophie came out with a shawl draped around her shoulders.  One would expect it to be warmer in June, but the spring chill seemed to be lingering around longer than usual.  It was only about 4 o’clock in the afternoon and wouldn’t be dark for another few hours, but she spotted several campfires already burning in the distance.  The Khan’s, who had decided to go camping for their annual family reunion this year, had also gathered around their own campfire with plates full of food.  The grills had been churning out hara masala burgers, seekh kabobs, and Mama’s famous chicken tikkas non-stop since they got here.  The sounds of laughter and family gossip kept Sophie distracted for a while, but seeing all the jovial children made it harder and harder to stop thinking of Ali.  Sophie immediately tried to shake the thought from her mind.

IN THE MOUNTAINS UP HIGH by Jad Kaado

Chris and Donny Antoun joined their new friends, Sarah, Laila, and Adel for a camping trip over the weekend.  The brothers were newly arrived in Lebanon and thrilled to go up the mountains for the first time abroad.  They rode with their newly acquired comrades up to a mountain range that sat fifteen hundred meters above sea level. 

I SEE YOU EVERYWHERE by Jason Liebman

You’re gone.

I keep having to remind myself

Of that

Every morning.

HOW MY MOTHER LEFT MY FATHER (OR VICE VERSA) by Pamela Salmon

Blog - GOING HOME - SPRING SEMESTER, 2015 by Hadley Ring, AKA The Seventeen-Year-Old Freshman   

      When I first moved into my dorm room, my RA glued cutout photos of Bet’s and my faces onto paper ducklings and taped them to our door. I remembered seeing a duckling snatched by a crow from its mother. It cried out until it went silent on the branch of an evergreen tree where the crow ate him. Bet’s Dad, Franklin Rhodes, was murdered on his way to work one day. They found him stuffed inside the trunk of his Mercedes. I had a friend in Boston who told me she saw the ghost of Bet’s Dad when she worked in the kitchen at the clubhouse of the Thump Golf Club. She heard the wind blowing, thunder cracked, then the creaking floors grew footsteps; she saw a bright light covering him in the doorway.  “You’re dead!” she tried to yell, but his scent left her gasping.