Eshani Surya You are nine, unskilled on the monkey bars, but you don’t watch the placement of your hands. Other kids scream and chase a kickball, but you are not invited; chafing velcro leaves a razed sliver of skin behind on your neck, but no matter. You like to wear…

Kathryn Kulpa The smell hits first. It always does. Diaper pail ammonia mixed with lion cage, meat and blood and wild. She slams her face against the bars. That’s always the worst, not because they won’t hold—they always do—but the heedlessness, the willingness to split a lip, to lose a…