University of San Francisco's Student-Run Literary Magazine
by Aamena Lalji We eat popsicles in front of the television, sucking on them ‘til our cheeks are sore, peeling like wallpaper. Red juice drips down both our chins. You break the stick in half and tuck the pieces beneath your top lip, over your front teeth, smile that gummy smile at me. “I’m a… Continue reading Walrus
by Carl Boon The pictures prove our parents were young, with neat clothes and unscarred skin. The pictures prove they did things: picnicked at sundown among yellow-studded Pennsylvania hills, stood in line on Friday afternoons at the First National Bank, paychecks in hand, and drove Pontiacs, their destinations sometimes unclear, their Amoco maps folded incorrectly.… Continue reading Notes For Our Parents
by Amanda Vogt I met a boy at the swimming pool once. He was skinny and flat—like all it would take was one jab of my finger to send him stumbling backward, sinking below the ripples of the water. We stood chest to chest, too close to the ledge, his suit dripping icy splashes onto… Continue reading The Swimming Pool
by K Roberts They dug up the time capsule ahead of schedule. Loganville High needed a new gym, so the statue of our mascot, Jersey Jerry, was uprooted along with the southeast parking lot and a laptop-sized locked metal box intended to be buried for a century. The treasure chest had lasted 52 years, and… Continue reading Time Capsule
by Jos Burns The shop was carefully arranged, a dimly lit, fragile ecology in the damp evening air. Handwritten price tags dangled from thick cotton string, a casual denial of barcode technology. A few candles burned on a desk in the back, shedding almost as much light as the heavily shaded incandescent lamps. The shop… Continue reading The Transaction
by Kelly Talbot Leticia stood by the window, eating a bowl of oatmeal and studying the blue jays outside. As they hopped among the tree branches, they alternated between cackling harshly and singing pitch-perfect notes. Leticia wondered how many other types of birds had such a vast repertoire. Of all the birds... All the birds!… Continue reading After the Apocalypse, Day 3
by Hannah Epstein I first properly met Madeleine at a birthday party in Teresa’s backyard back in the sixth grade. Before that, we had only seen each other in passing when our teachers would have us leave the school building in neat lines for recess. When I saw her back then, before I really knew… Continue reading Madeleine
by Daniel Pié Susan’s question lingers in her unmistakable, raspy alto as I approach the portico entrance to the mortuary. My legs quake under the weight of unsaddled emotion. My hollowed-out stomach creaks, needing to be fed but allowing nothing to enter except for the occasional piece of dry toast. I slip a thumb behind… Continue reading Obituary
by Thomas Elson They took no classes together, and, after that first year, never attended the same school, but somewhere, inside the scattered years of their lives, there were yearbooks. He drives more slowly than he used to, even more slowly today, through the empty school parking lot for the first time in fifty-eight years.… Continue reading Years & Yearbooks
by Sam Burnette The church stands tall against the nothingness around it, spires sharp as they reach toward a cloudless sky. It reminds Stark of the castles in the stories his mom used to tell him. She’s dead now. Electrocuted by faulty wiring. His Uncle Hayes said she would’ve lived if her heart weren’t so… Continue reading A Sacrifice for the Rat King
Ignatian Literary Magazine 