The following is an excerpt from Lexi Jackson’s story “Earthquake Lungs” forthcoming in Issue 3.
“I can only imagine what was going on in his head. A loud roar like a train moving past, on and on and on and on until his head hurt? Or utter silence, as if he’d been ejected into space with no helmet? A string of if-only’s he was trying to walk through but each word catching him like thorns on wild rosebushes, tearing his clothes, scratching his ankles, piercing the very fabric of his being? Didn’t I love him enough?”
Jackson’s piece focuses on the fallout for friends and family after a suicide. With its straight forwardness and stark prose, the story captures beautifully the suffocating questions and confusion that surround loved ones left behind. Find the complete work in Issue 3.
Sobotka Literary Magazine 