...Matt Mitchell © 2021 Matt Mitchell 2021 Matt Mitchell The Neon Hollywood Cowboy the night i punctured an artery with a syringe tip, cuspate sharp like clam exoskeleton, the california dusk was electric. my mother cried from her ohio bedroom, imagining her only son dying under the belly...

...Justin Lacour Justin Lacour boilerplate Smoking cigarettes in my one clean undershirt. This summer feels like a sermon on pride and speed and neon. We re indistinct as stars or skateboarders blurry under streetlights. There s a savant that can mimic creation, from birds in a sack to bullets...

... from a distant neon sign, so I had everything I could want: youth and time and the sea In my third-floor room I was happy with the typewriter I returned to each day after clocking out with friends scattered throughout this building as well as people I scarcely knew: the couple through...

..., stumbling drunken from his loch to find me camped alone, too shy to run off before his beery warning: I never kissed an American before, his sudden lunge knocking me to the ground. How long to know a man is dangerous? In Taiwan, the neon shops were wet...

... and I liked it.       I found out about Orpheus          and don’t look back. I saw neon and gay men and          needle-drugs and v-necks. Mother went to town for more supplies and came back with another man’s love. She told me while I was sleeping    Fucking means finding...

... icons, prayer candles and homemade cemetery wreaths with gaudy neon flowers that she sold on consignment at the nursery. There was a golden ichthys on Kim s Kia and a 3-D picture of the Last Supper above her nightstand. Sometimes she had a sense of humor. How do you make holy water? She d ask. How? Pour...

... for Barrelhouse. Matt Mitchell lives in Columbus, Ohio. He is the author of The Neon Hollywood Cowboy (forthcoming). He tweets @matt_mitchell48. Naïma Msechu is an MFA candidate at the University of Notre Dame. She received her BA in literary arts from Brown University in 2017 and spends her time between...

... today.” Melody rose from the table to wander the room, leafing through case files and 94 the minnesota review lab reports that lay open on various counters. She had once come across her own MRI images and was disturbed by them, how her brain looked like a neon...

... without clothes on, and I can t shake the feeling that masturbating is something I m meant to do under the covers. I met Oliver like this: Down the street was a pet store with a flashing neon sign: Rep- tiles, reptiles, reptiles! Passing on my walk from work, I wondered if that was the store s name...

... things I could have done to stop it from happening. I could have tried harder. I could have looked for other jobs. But I thought that Jarret would get me a job folding clothes and help me rebuild myself. We get to a large liquor store with a broken neon sign that would look nice if it worked...

... taillights in the dark. The window next to my bed is so frosted over it looks like a bunch of stars slammed into it. The neon orange from the LIQUOR sign outside illuminates the patterns on the glass. The businesses around here don’t need names, they just call...

... there spoonfeeding nursing home patients and wheeling the snack cart in and out of rooms where residents sat in La-Z Boys in front of blaring televisions. I wonder, for a moment, whether our mother will end up there watching Fox News and game shows with neon-lit wheels. Oh, God. Remember Mr. Steele? I say...

... made during their time at university. These were people who thought as they did, who were eager to enjoy life and wanted the best. On the weekends they looked for new restaurants to try, new clubs to visit. When Royal City Avenue opened up, they all went along and marvelled at the loud neon...

... system. Finally, on the Simmons's roof were, of course, Jen's undergarments but also two new signs. They were made on neon poster board. The yellow piece to the left of the office window said YES; the orange piece to the right, NO. I walked the half-circle twice, taking it all in, wondering...

... Political science. He taught for the last twenty-five years of his career at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. The area is home of Walmart and Tyson Chicken, with neon signs flashing, "250 million killed a year." My father's originally from southeastern Arkansas. His father was a school...

... the men who served pancakes at the church last month and sell fabric poppies at the one lighted intersection on Memorial Day weekend. They wear neon yel- low vests over their T-shirts and bellies. Just before dark, the traffic into the fairgrounds will become steady, and when dark falls...