Nonfiction – PLEASE SEE ME

PSM 16 Nonfiction – Hari Venkat – For the Clouds I Do Not Know

Nonfiction Issue #16: What If? April 30, 2025 For the Clouds I Do Not Know by Hari Venkat t is once again my bathroom. Upon seeing the fake granite splitting along the corner of the sink, I realize that it’s the one from 2014. As is usual here, I am startled by the immediacy with which the coldness of the tile infects my legs through my heels. It is dark but for the slab of ...

PSM 16 Nonfiction Template-Terminators – Angela Townsend

Nonfiction Issue #16: What If? April 30, 2025 Terminators by Angela Townsend oth models are Terminators. Any rivalry is invalid. NASA’s instruments detect no difference in mettle between the T1D and the T2D. Both withstand severe seismic activity. Both pause in the grocery store to subtract sugar alcohols from total carbohydrates. But the world is still teething, and it gnaws on conflict. We pit red against blue, bread against cake, diabetic against diabetic. Type 1 gets sympathy. ...

PSM 16 Nonfiction – Zoran Naumovski – I Left My Wife on Valentines Day

Nonfiction Issue #16: What If? April 30, 2025 I Left My Wife on Valentine's Day by Zoran Naumovski left my wife on Valentine’s Day. It was early that morning, but it wasn’t even morning yet. The goats were not yet bleating, and the roosters weren’t even crowing. Our bedroom was pitch-dark save for the faint ray of light emanating from the living room through the crack in our door. I leaned over, kissed her softly on ...

PSM 16 Nonfiction – The Hand of Nature – Sofia Mamakos

Nonfiction Issue #16: What If? April 30, 2025 The Hand of Nature by Sofia Mamakos y kindergarten teacher taught me that monarchs are the only butterflies that migrate, like birds. I pictured large groups of monarchs in flashes of orange and black escaping the winter cold, clustering in the crowed treetops of sunny Mexico. In my head, the scene was so beautiful. I was at Canterbury Park in Shakopee, Minnesota, a place my mom would ...

PSM 16 Nonfiction Template-WhatIfWereBeautifullyWired – Sara E Golden

Nonfiction Issue #16: What If? April 30, 2025 What If We're Beautifully Wired Just the Way We Are? by Sara E. Golden he guilt of a mother of a child with disabilities is an endless scroll from the shaming sea. What if he hadn’t had colic? What if I had been stricter with my diet? What if I had been a more pristine artifact - a template from which to stamp the perfect child? Because life doesn’t work that ...

PSM 16 Nonfiction-Dear Driver – Kalani Padilla

Nonfiction Issue #16: What If? April 30, 2025 Dear Driver by Kalani Padilla ear Driver, After the accident, many people came up to my car to see if I was okay. Yes, I reassured them. “Can anyone see my bag?” I asked. “It’s a small, rectangular leather purse. With a long strap.” Even though I was dangling inside my car, which itself lay on its side, so that both of us were fetal under the moon ...

PSM 16 Nonfiction – Break the Disease – Nancy Gilbert

Nonfiction Issue #16: What If? April 30, 2025 Break the Disease by Nancy Gilbert t happened on a Memorial Day weekend in Georgetown, Texas. I was vacationing with my husband, and we had fun things planned. First, I wanted to see my mother who lived in a small group home in Round Rock, just a few miles from Georgetown. Since she had fallen a few days before our arrival, we visited her in the hospital. On ...

PSM 16 Nonfiction-Unreliable Witness – Monica Edwards

Nonfiction Issue #16: What If? April 30, 2025 Unreliable Witness by Monica Edwards anuary 2, 2025 I am haunting you. Not because I am still inside of you. No, your surgeon took care of that. It's the possibility of me that haunts you. True, I was in your body and I am disquieting in my malignancy, but a lot of the fear I induce comes from bad PR as much as anything else. Because let’s be honest, ...

Just One Thing-Cara Mead-CNF-PSM15

Nonfiction Issue #15: Harmony October 15, 2024 Just One Thing by Cara Mead n her imagining, hitting bottom would be a hellscape of jagged emotions, and a rollercoaster ride of pain. It was mildly curious then that her world was simply empty. No ambition or thirst, no drive or hunger. The absence of taste was strange, she used to love to eat. Sometimes she would play a little game and try to test her lack ...

The New Story of Family Illness-MallikaIyer-CNF_PFM15

Nonfiction Issue #15: Harmony October 15, 2024 The New Story of Family Illness by Mallika Iyer ou will probably be somebody who has to take this for the rest of their life,” said my psychiatrist, turning to her computer to put in the order for my next script. She said the rest of my life could be measured in script renewals, bottled emptied and filled in 30, 60, 90-day intervals, first multiply by months in a ...