Published Stories
Ground 2 Sound
On March 1, 2024, Tacoma turned out at the Ground 2 Sound Festival to show the impact and intersections of art and activism, and to focus on the crucial importance of clean waters in our Puget Sound Region. Read the selected pieces and honorable mentions from our themed call!
Guilty Pleasure Songs by Peter Pendras
My phone chirped, coming to life. Don't forget: yogurt and bananas for your smoothie. Followed by three heart emojis. A text from my wife who had been dead for a year and two months. I felt a stab of rage. Definitely not the “warm fuzzy feeling” described in the promotional sales claptrap. When Diane passed, I wanted the simplest, most straightforward process. Take the body to the industrial oven and turn it to dust. Give me the dust in a cardboard box. Done.
December Speaks by Martina Preston
It wasn’t until I left my town that I began to learn its secrets. Winter break after my first semester in university, I drove home the back way and fell in love for the first time with the turns in the roads, the bareness of the deciduous trees on either side, river birch peeling and turning to slush in the canoes of the highway shoulder. I left my home behind and arrived at my house. I hadn’t started calling it “my parent’s house” yet. I wasn’t sure what to call it.
In Tacoma’s Winter by Cat Melaunie
In Tacoma's winter, bright and rainy grace,
A tale unfolds in each raindrop's embrace.
Tacoma Elf Storage, a festive sight,
The mystery continues to fervent delight […]
Peace With the Wild by Tyrean Martinson
Not for man's conventions but
For the peace with the wild,
I practice sitting still–
For mornings on my back deck
To watch the soft rabbit in the grass
And the yearling buck who steps slow
Out of wood's edge to curl
Into a bed of clover he nibbles […]
Because bullets fly at second graders by Meghan Feuk
the world is a dangerous
place to love a child
I am reckless
to want their future
above water
to not write
their identification
on their backs
in permanent ink […]
Twins by Katie Scott
There are memories of my life that, no matter how many times I recall them, they only play in slow motion. Though I know they happened at the speed of life, my memory willfully recalls them in seconds, stretched out to emphasize the fleeting moments, in an attempt to squeeze out every bit of reminiscence.
Best Friend Material by Jack Cameron
Mike comes right over. Middle of the night. Three in the goddamn morning on a Thursday. I call and say I need him to come over and he acts like it ain’t even a thing. He don’t even ask why. There are ​​friends; there are good friends; and there are best friends. Mike’s my best friend. Some friends would help you move. Some would help you move a body.
To Henderson Bay Will I Go by Dawn Ellis
I will arise now and go to Henderson Bay,
to the old, shingled cabin with sun-worn decking,
and mice that run through sunbeams, across the top of the couch.
A sleeping porch will I have there, windowed with sheets
of plastic, where the music of the creek underneath
and the sound of waves lapping on the beach float in.
And I shall have the peace of lazy summer days spent
with my younger sisters and brother, urging, “Jump! Jump!”
Swinging out from the bulkhead, on the knotted rope,
I will drop into the frigid salt water at high tide.
I will sputter at the cold. My sisters and brother will applaud.
My best friend, Michelle Ledbetter, will caution me,
“Careful of the spikes.” I will climb with Michelle,
up onto the old, wrecked barge, washed up down the way.
The Names in Me by Mateo Acuña
If I had been born a cisgender boy, I would have been named Walter, after my father and grandfather. My cousin once removed, cousin twice removed, and my father’s cousin twice removed are also named Walter. It had always been peculiar to me that the whitest white name, and often the moniker of movie villains—something you notice when half of your relatives have it—was a family name for a bunch of brown Peruvians.
I asked my grandfather from the other side of the equator, using the modern wonders of WhatsApp and Google Translate, where the family name came from. According to him, the name came from his father, Alberto, who worked at a German company as a naval mechanic. While he was there, he became friends with a German man named Walter. He liked the name and gave it to his son, who then gave it to his son. Other men in the family liked and passed the name down to their sons. Maybe God did know what he was doing when he made me trans.
Like Sunshine by Helen Rowe
It is June. We are staying at your parents’ house on your two-week leave before you deploy again. I always love coming here. Not just because we are surrounded by family, and your mom is the best cook on the West Coast, but we have so much history here. Our relationship took root in this valley, it bloomed and grew and became a stepping-stone to the rest of our story. Our first apartment was in this valley town and the memories are saturated in these streets like the hot summer sun.
We are in your parents’ pool. Little Man is inside playing with Grandma, and we are enjoying the momentary break from being parents. We’re both floating on ridiculous pool toys. We’re darker than when we first got here. My tan, round belly is sticking up out of the water. I am almost four months pregnant with our twins. Our baby girls will join us later this year. I look over at you. You are tanned and relaxed as you float and look up at the cloudless sky. I am so in love with you.
How to Want by Trevor Neil White
I should’ve drank more in college.
That knowledge sobered me, ironically,
acknowledging the only thing standing
between me and making brothers or lovers
was losing the prudish delusion that if I just kept soda in my Solo
and shortcuts to short stories on my desktop,
I could thumb my French nose at those vapid upchucker-class prats
and emerge the right-brained victor.
I always had more to say, anyway,
with a carefully planned paragraph
than a flip cup-adjacent conversation
or morning-after, mid-network handshake.
Trouble at the Flagship Cinnabon by Layla Ormbrek
Soon after my family moved to Federal Way, my mom told me that the SeaTac Mall had the first ever Cinnabon. The flagship. In my seven-year-old mind, this meant importance, gravitas. We tried it out one day, the gloopy mess of dough and icing practically heaving atop our paper plates. Even as a typically greedy child, I knew that there was something excessive about a Cinnabon, that it could be the gateway to some very bad things. Judiciously, my mothersliced mine into quarters with the flimsy plastic knife. Soon after gobbling up a few bites, I went droopy and lethargic for the rest of the afternoon.
That day, I learned that Cinnabon was a luxury that would make you pay in the end. But it was one of the few claims to fame that Federal Way had, other than being a place where the Green River Killer would go hot-tubbing or where apartments were cheap. I’d felt part of something important when we lived in Seattle, where you could travel 600 feet up the Space Needle or watch people throw fish in the Market. Down in the suburbs, I felt beige andinsubstantial. Even at a young age, I noticed this difference in how a place could make you feel.
Mirror Lights by Jamie Gogocha
The staccato of Nadine’s shoes on the rocks and the rising panic in her breathing created a jarringcombination of sounds. She hadn’t quite broken the tree line yet when the sky faded from a paleblue to a deepening violet. The only thing worse to her than being outside after sunset was being inthe woods after sunset. That was unthinkable.
She took a moment to steady her breath appreciate the silhouettes of the house and trees against theartistry in the sky. Her chest burned and her heart felt as though it would leap out toward thehorizon. Nadine started when a muted rustling caught her attention. She couldn’t place its source, soshe turned her head this way and that to try to pick it out. Quickly, she gave up looking and strodetoward the house. She noticed as she got closer to the ornate wooden door, the sound intensified. Itwent from a soft rustle to the rush of static in her very soul like that of a record that spun long afterthe orchestra had packed up and gone home.
No Good Word For That Alchemy by Paul Barach
Every time I stand beneath a Coastal Redwood my mouth hangs open as a thousand words try to escape from my chest all at once.
Every time, the only one that makes it through is a confounded “How?”
How can something grow so titanic?
I know the short answer: it’s a plant, a genetic byproduct of water, carbon dioxide, and sunlight. Redwoods just get a little overzealous about it.
I even know the long answer; a seed the size of a grain of sand falls hundreds of feet to the soil. With enough sunlight, water, luck, and time, a sentient monolith the width of a Boeing 747 soars into the sky, spreading out branches the size of tree trunks with twigs the size of saplings, tall enough to shade the Statue of Liberty’s torch.
And still, “How?”
What other word fits when witnessing a miracle?
Eating the Heart That Gives Out in Fear by Samantha Melamed
We left in a hurry so there’s nothing left for you in the housebut if you look out the window you can see the encroaching flamesgutting the town along their warpathsave the only church still standing on Ash Street
At noon you count the bulbous heads of the dandelionsat 3pm the sparrows line up on the telephone wires across the street
Not to Blame My Hair by Dawn Ellis
My hair is naturally curly now.
It never has been before.
When my children were young,
When I was a single, working mother,
When I delivered my children
To their father every other weekend
And spent those weekends missing the kids,
And planted myself on the couch, watching movies,
My hair was straight . . . and flat.
A Simple Joy by Carl “Papa” Palmer
This man was reading in his room~ William Wordsworth
My last hour each day
as I hit the hay
is unwinding time
relaxing as I’m
feeding my obsession.
A Perfect Brightness of Hope by Genevieve Arnold
I’ve always had hope, not wishes or desires, but hallelujah hope. The kind that thrusts you out of bed in the morning. Since my earliest years, hope has been my companion. She introduced us. At first, she loaned me hers until I found my own. When I did, it became our shared love language and the expectant eyes through which we viewed the world. That’s why it was ok when she died. I wasn’t ready (is anyone?) Death showed up breathless and raring to go like it was late for a very important date. Feeling sick on Sunday; gone on Friday. Not necessarily a surprise. She was sick: leukemia.
Year of the Water Rabbit
It’s Monkeyshine Season and time for a treasure hunt. To partake in the Lunar New Year fun, each of these pieces is inspired by the Water Rabbit. Please enjoy flash fiction, poetry & micro essays that explore themes of peace, hope & longevity.