Apricity Magazine Apricity Magazine

Love Letters from Prison

Love Letters from Prison I worked for the post office and we got stacks of envelopes from the prison, letters from inmates to their lovers with lots of artwork in every address, every letter of the lover’s name exploding with whispery feathers blowing up each pencil line and insecure cherubs announcing the lover’s name, a… Read More

Last Chance Charlie

Last Chance Charlie “Have I ever been good?” He wondered, as he entered a staring contest with the mirror. His irises were as dead as river stones. Crow’s feet stretched tightly above his cheekbones like the swirling fingers of distant nebulae. He had been in his dressing room now for 9 hours. It had been… Read More

retrospect

retrospect **This piece has been published by Better Than Starbucks Orpheus woke pensive cigarettes burning holes in his bedsheets. Might as well be dead whispers his landlord when he sees Orpheus leave for work each morning but then again who'd feed his dog? Orpheus has a black dog named Nestor never barks too much. When… Read More

Drug Taking Can Be Thwarted

Drug Taking Can Be Thwarted Drug taking can be thwarted by just saying no one tarot card reading president's wife assured us from much the same pool of knowledge my home ec teacher informed our eighth-grade class pregnancy could be prevented by keeping both feet on the floor, and our phys ed teacher's reassuring news… Read More

So, Whoever Said Pain is Inevitable

So, Whoever Said Pain is Inevitable So, whoever said pain is inevitable and suffering is an option must have never sat in church house semi-circle clutching the Twelve Steps pamphlet like a batch of white roses, or felt obligated to let insult skid off their brains like poorly aimed ball peen hammers, must never have… Read More

Go Now, You Are Forgiven

Go Now, You Are Forgiven I took the back stairs to the front office from my classroom in the seventh grade hallway, more out of habit than for any logical reason. I never used the main stairwell at the front of the building, avoiding the corners where the district people congregated. I would rather run… Read More

Where His Eyes Should Have Been White, They Were Red

Where His Eyes Should Have Been White, They Were Red Serena didn’t expect to go home once, nonetheless twice, in the same year. More so, she didn’t expect her mother to be the reason for both visits. The four-hour drive to Ithaca, calming while nerve-wracking, had Serena wanting to turn back, away from her home… Read More

Navigating Back Into My Body

Navigating Back Into My Body I’ve heard cannibals only eat people they covet, swallowing raw flesh in an act of endearment. What part of my body am I willing to chew through to get back in? And when I find what I am hunting for— what counts as transcendence? I am indigenous of nowhere now;… Read More

Three Winks

Three Winks **This piece has also been published by the Fishbowl Press In morning cold, dawn blooms like young skin, birdsong widening the sky. The window frames a square of green-smeared light. Inside, a woman holding her breath, a feathery body of flaws. About the Author Clara Burghelea is a Romanian-born poet. Recipient of the… Read More