Villain Era 🖤🔪 (@villaineralit)

FU by Heather Joy Fuck you for luring me in with cocaine at a party when I was eighteen.Fuck me for being too young and naive to know any better.Fuck you for your couch hopping lifestyle (especially being six years older than me).Fuck me for thinking it was cool and nomadic at the time.Fuck you for getting me pregnant at nineteen.

Heather Joy has a list of F.U.s she needs to get out. Half of them are for you, today at Villain Era! 🖤🔪

10.03.2026 15:48 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

Three Poems by Kris Becker Ignoring the War At the door of my body,at the boundary, where the meal must enterat the properpace and volume,where my facemust stay still,(after the nondescript prayer)at the table in the appropriate chair,the thoughts I am thinking,the words I am thinking, go missing.Everyone talks.I suppose I talk also.Afterwards (after words)

It was a literal hell, but Kris Becker went there anyway, today at Villain Era! 🖤🔪

06.03.2026 16:26 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

We are THRILLED to participate in even a small way in this important vengeance.

04.03.2026 03:44 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0

Two Poems by Jessica Edmond Coffee & Coke The 190-degree placebo. That was the trick. The doctor was local royalty in a town too small to check his ego. He didn’t just want caffeine; he wanted a witness to his own importance. He would pay at the first window, insult the lineage of a nineteen-year-old, take his cup at the second, and then loop back around like a shark in a Lexus.

Jessica Edmond has fixed your tragedy for you (or has she??), today at Villain Era! 🖤🔪

03.03.2026 16:35 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 1

The Target by Arthur Davis We lived in Queens, New York. My brother Michael was accepting. As a child you could set him down and he would remain where he was placed. I lasted two hours in nursery school, a week in kindergarten, and moved up to first grade just after my fourth birthday. At first, my mother had to sit across the hall in an empty classroom, or I would get up and walk out of school when the teacher turned her back on the class.

It's brother vs. brother in a tense round of rifle shooting practice, until one of them reveals his sinister motive in Arthur Davis's story.

27.02.2026 16:56 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Coming soon. Knives ready

26.02.2026 22:30 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Letters from Tehran by John LeJeune Letters from Tehran by Kassandra Khomeini Introduction These documents were discovered in the U.S. embassy in Tehran by a study abroad student. They were unsigned, unmarked, and sealed in a “prominently displayed” diploma cover. The student was arrested by the Basij for espionage and sentenced to death. His death adds to the growing epidemic of chronic absenteeism in American universities—though at this moment, he is passing all his classes Summa Cum Absentia and is on track to graduate.

In John LeJeune's found-documents story, a mysterious report recounting the fatal meteor strike that destroyed Southeastern Sideways State University (SSSU) wasn't enough to kill its bureaucracy, today at Villain Era! 🖤🔪

24.02.2026 16:37 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

Junk by Thao Vu “Transfer everything in here for me,” my sister ordered and tossed two identical leather wallets into my lap, one with saddle stitches unravelled around the frayed edges, the other brand-new, still…

Great recent #flashfiction by Thao Vu in @villaineralit.bsky.social:

villaineralit.com/2026/02/06/j...

#shortstories #litmags #love

17.02.2026 17:02 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

Four Poems by Samuel Day Wharton Subject: From the Desk of Fred Brown The lots declared that he was guilty.A pity. Zealots always executetheir duty faithfully. Let’s be clear:in no way does this reflect badly on the company.…

Also in case y'all missed it, I've got 4 poems up at the deliciously vindictive journal @villaineralit.bsky.social

Thanks to @charlesjensen.bsky.social for taking these in!

villaineralit.com/2026/02/20/f...

22.02.2026 14:44 👍 9 🔁 9 💬 1 📌 0

Four Poems by Samuel Day Wharton Subject: From the Desk of Fred Brown The lots declared that he was guilty.A pity. Zealots always execute their duty faithfully. Let's be clear:in no way does this reflect badly on the company. But let's be clearer: the long term effectsare all but unknown. Whatever that was that fell by the window, it was noMan. Memo: what we know is that the fall…

Samuel Day Wharton assures you this in no way reflects badly on the company, in a series of poems inspired by email subject lines, today at Villain Era! 🖤🔪

20.02.2026 16:39 👍 9 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 2

Grandma by Alla Umanskiy When there's no one left in the living world who remembers you, you disappear… —Coco I visit my grandma’s grave rarely. Now I’ve admitted it. This is something a good granddaughter is not supposed to divulge. I thought I would visit a lot, marking her birthdays, the day of her death and other special anniversaries by sitting by her gravestone, wiping it down, placing new little stones on it, as is customary for Jews.

Alla Umanskiy doesn't her visit her grandma's grave, and now she's admitted it, today at Villain Era! 🖤🔪

17.02.2026 16:44 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

Four Poems by Julie E. Bloemeke After Picasso’s Woman in A Black Hat, Toledo Museum of Art I think of her geometric rhetoric,black hat akin to scarlet A, their liaison that opened in Paris—— how many, after all, open in Paris?Your first feral message came from that city too, your barren bed, photo of your sheets, empty without me. Suffer our carnal. Suffer…

Julie E. Bloemeke knows not every trust is touch and skin, today at Villain Era! 🖤🔪

13.02.2026 22:13 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

Portrait of the White Woman on Fire by Priyanuj Mazumdar I never believed in ghosts until I met Advik. An amateur ghosthunter—that’s what he called himself—he would sneak out of the hostel room we shared every Saturday night to explore haunted places. His blog on local paranormal sightings had started to gather a cult following, and in 2010, blogs were all the rage——the internet still a luxury for most. When he convinced me to tag along on these escapades, little did I know what we were walking into, what we would be running from for the rest of our lives.

Two ex-lovers reunite years after their affair to confront a series of murders in one of their families, which may or may not be the work of a vengeful spirit, in Priyanuj Mazmudar's story, today at Villain Era! 🖤🔪

10.02.2026 16:21 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

Junk by Thao Vu “Transfer everything in here for me,” my sister ordered and tossed two identical leather wallets into my lap, one with saddle stitches unravelled around the frayed edges, the other brand-new, still…

In Thao Vu's flash, a sister's entire life in this town is sprawled out on the narrator's lap, today at Villain Era! 🖤🔪 villaineralit.com/2026/02/06/j...

06.02.2026 16:54 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

Velvet Gold by Sophia Krich-Brinton The company had a camera-on policy, so Jane smiled in case someone in the meeting was watching. It wasn’t a great smile, but at least it wasn’t a scream. Chad was probably watching and taking notes so he could announce her mistakes to everyone. ‘Smile, Jane, you don’t look happy to be here.’ She squeezed her stress ball into a pancake.

In Sophia Krich-Brinton's story, Jane's got some shocking feedback for her supervisor Chad--today at Villain Era! 🖤🔪

03.02.2026 16:40 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

I do not miss her. / I miss the certainty that she was good.

30.01.2026 00:22 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

Geezerman! by Evan Laughlin When the stranger appeared, I was sitting on a bench at the edge of the beach in Marina del Rey, California, warming my bones like an old lizard. Before me, six athletic young women played volleyball on a court outlined in the sand with blue plastic tape. I did not see the stranger approach. One moment I had the bench to myself.

In Evan Laughlin's story, a mysterious medic-alert bracelet triggers the creation of your neighborhood's least likely superhero, today at Villain Era! 🖤🔪

30.01.2026 16:43 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

BV2025 Beyond My Comprehension by DL: Treatment by Alistair McCartney Kyle MacLachlan is hiding [ ] in your houseKyle MacLachlan is hiding [ ] in your carKyle MacLachlan is hiding [ ] in your closetKyle MacLachlan is hiding [ ] in the woods In the dark Kyle MacLachlan is hiding [ ] in plain sightKyle MacLachlan is hiding [ ] in full-screenKyle MacLachlan is hiding [ ] in your closet…

If Kyle MacLachlan is hiding in your house, car, closet, or woods, Alistair McCartney's poem is for you--today at Villain Era! 🖤🔪

27.01.2026 16:22 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Two Poems by Maudie Bryant What I Miss Is Fiction I do not miss her.I miss the certainty that she was good.The mirror I polished every time she smiled.The softness I swaddled with her silence.She never said the cruel things.She let them bloom in the aftermath.The truth came with teeth——blades tucked inside lullabies,inferno dressed as candlelight.Not every ghost deserves an altar.

Maudie Bryant doesn't grieve the blades tucked into lullabies, today at Villain Era! 🖤🔪

23.01.2026 16:36 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 1

Thank you for sharing! 🖤

22.01.2026 18:44 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

a woman is holding a pink burn book in her hands and saying `` you let it out , honey . write in the book . '' ALT: a woman is holding a pink burn book in her hands and saying `` you let it out , honey . write in the book . ''

Team, we need submissions in all categories but especially a) nonfiction and b) poetry.

22.01.2026 18:29 👍 6 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 2

Make no mistake: his ashes are all mine, / I will scatter them
where I please

20.01.2026 17:03 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

The Grammar of Deception by E. A. Mayer Kerry was savoring the chocolatey notes of her first espresso shot from the new Italian machine that dominated the kitchen countertop when the first text bonged on her phone. She ignored it, taking another sip of heaven. Whoever was texting could wait. The Titian red Bravissimo model had cost more than she could afford and matched nothing in her studio apartment, but its sleek presence and effortless functionality made her smile as it hummed each tiny cup of caffeinated bliss into existence.

In E.A. Mayer's story, Kerry responds to a scam text, setting off an unexpected chain of events that change her life forever, today at Villain Era! 🖤🔪

20.01.2026 16:22 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 1

Two Poems by Marie Macri With this ring, I see red No A/C, driving from L.A. to Vegas——desert heat, a crimson-coil hairdryer.His ex-wives crawl from the glove boxlike scorpions,fodder for arguments about coins,about air-conditioning.He isn’t my exes. He isn’t.I see red.Courthouse line——long, ragged—almost-newlyweds:show a passport, get a spouse.the DMV of matrimony——take a number, please!

His ex-wives crawl from the glove box like scorpions as Marie Macri and her fiancé drive to Vegas. What could go wrong? Today at Villain Era! 🖤🔪

16.01.2026 16:18 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 1

We needed these poems more than ever 🖤

13.01.2026 18:30 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Four Poems by Panika M. C. Dillon say hello to my little Kyle gulf to the left of us rattlesnakes to the right here we are stuck in the poison ivy with Kyle cryingbecause someone said the p-word this wasn’t the first time Kylelost …

it’s a hard day to brag about a publication, but I’m glad it’s with @villaineralit.bsky.social.

villaineralit.com/2026/01/09/f...

09.01.2026 22:57 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0

The Great Indoors by L. Mack I was drinking a mocha at The Low Ground Cafe, shielding my mug from a bee and wishing it were warmer——the weather, I mean, not the bee——and there I was, taking in Nature and Culture and swatting the one away from the other, when I spotted a familiar face at the next table. It was a triangular sort of face with a trim reddish beard and kind of pointy ears, and it was attached to a boy I’d gone to school with named Rey, who was an absolute genius for pranks.

Izzy and Bex get to enjoy a quiet weekend in the country--but at what cost??--in a story from L. Mack, today at Villain Era! 🖤🔪

13.01.2026 16:38 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 1

Four Poems by Panika M. C. Dillon say hello to my little Kyle gulf to the left of us rattlesnakes to the right here we are stuck in the poison ivy with Kyle cryingbecause someone said the p-word this wasn’t the first time Kylelost it the first time was when he saw Bugs Bunny sing Die Walkürein a dress not everyone can be kicked out of the nest with…

Panika M. C. Dillon invites you to say "hello" to her little...Kyle, today at Villain Era!

09.01.2026 16:53 👍 2 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

True Crime by Kerri Brady Long It’s harder to get murdered than Goldie thought it would be. Based on the hundreds of true crime podcasts she has listened to, documentaries she has watched, and books she has read, if a woman is out alone after dark (or alone in a park, alone on a train, alone in the rain; the options become Seussical quickly) she’s practically obligated to get murdered.

Kerri Brady Long takes cues from Teen Vogue articles like "Can You Tell If a Guy Is Into You, or if He's Just Looking for His Next Victim?" today at Villain Era!

06.01.2026 16:31 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Hunger by Marianne Villanueva The blacksmith was called Black Johannes because of the dirt that seemed to have worked its way permanently into the creases of his cheeks. His eldest son was called Black Ardan, and he was expecte…

Marianne Villanueva reveals why the blacksmith’s son was never heard from again—or was he?—today at Villain Era! villaineralit.com/2026/01/02/h...

03.01.2026 19:30 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Villain Era 🖤🔪

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