It takes about 3 minutes to get an x-ray of my chest. I can feel the wavelengths highlighting something deadly, at least that’s what it always feels like.

You’ve fallen in love. A mile long stretch of beach in your favorite season. You did not want to come here. You can’t imagine yourself leaving.

In our first-ever audio edition of Assignment, hosts Rebecca Dragon and Gillian Kemmerer read a series of poetry submissions from authors Ashley Mallick, Skylar Brown, Nicole Zelniker, Alexander Burdette and Daphne Rose.

Wake up. Put on last night’s panties. You have to do laundry later or else.

You are meeting Drew for breakfast. Drew is the kind of guy you could have been. Drew is a contender; no, strike that, a champion. Drew has arrived.

I was the girl who played in the mud…

I once had dinner with a man…

My students learn about the Romans…

In my backyard, a lagoon lies broad…

Sam Keck Scott is a freelance writer of both fiction and nonfiction. His work has appeared in The Atlantic,Outside, Popular Science, Orion, Hakai, Longreads, Smithsonian Magazine, Terrain.org, Camas, and others.

Her name was Rickie. She was named after an aunt Rivka in her dad’s family but she found the name, which just meant Rebecca in Yiddish

Walk passed: glassy sea

You hear the strays at midnight bay…

She’s rotten as a blooming girl…

Being a pedestrian in Los Angeles is like showing up uncaffeinated to a classroom of seventh-graders.