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Defenestration: December 2025

Happiest of holiday seasons to you all! Welcome to the December 2025 issue of Defenestration, weary travelers. Pull up a chair or a futon, grab your beverage of choice, and stay a while. It’s a weird world out there, and we think you’ll be much more comfortable in here with us. I mean, it’s pretty weird in here, too, but it’s the nonthreatening kind of weird you can introduce to your pets and your parents.

Defenestration: August 2025

Hello, everyone! Welcome to the August 2025 issue of Defenestration, the literary magazine dedicated to humor and one of the few artifacts that will remain after the apocalypse (alongside cockroaches, AOL discs, and Twinkies). We’re happy you’ve decided to join us this month for an adventure into the surreal and absurd. You won’t be disappointed.

Defenestration: April 2025

Good morning, friends of the internet, and welcome to the April 2025 issue of Defenestration! I think this is the first time the issue has ever fallen on Easter, so I’m sure many of you are about to enjoy today’s short stories and poems with fingers sticky with chocolate, marshmallows, and jellybeans; that stuff is a pain to clean off your screens and keyboards, so I suggest washing your hands before you continue. That’s probably a good idea, anyway. Y’all touch some weird stuff.

Nonfiction

“The Fountain,” by Marissa Phillips

Middle of January be damned, we were three 17-year-old girls preparing for our first Dracula’s Ball, and there was no way we were going to take any chances that could result in social suicide. Granted, Dracula’s Ball was held four times a year, but who wanted to go to a vampire-themed party all sweaty in the middle of summer? Attending in the dead of winter made perfect sense on all levels. And did goth parties have coat checks? I didn’t know. I’d never seen a goth in a puffer coat, especially not one with a big fuzzy hood. I assumed all goths mastered the art of layering, or maybe they’d just learned to defy the weather.

Fake Nonfiction

“Stop Fingering Cinnamon Buns: Bring Your Dopamine Levels Back to Baseline,” by Jackson Mattocks

Sure, it feels utterly euphoric plunging your acutely sensitive skin-covered phalanges into that soft, hot, sticky mass of dough, but is that really a sustainable practice?

Fiction

“That Special Time of Year,” by Sean Cahill

The room was festooned with garlands and tinsel. Pinecones and sprigs of holly were taped to the walls, and a foamy blanket of fake snow covered the teacher’s desk. On the chalkboard was a crude drawing of a late-model SUV, along with some dollar signs and percentages.

Poetry

“Sylvia Plath Goes to Whole Foods,” by Chris Turner

The kale bunches, thick-skulled and Germanic,
Green as envy. Eight dollars, ninety-nine
For what Aurelia pulled free
From Wellesley soil. I buy three bundles of virtue
That will blacken like the bell jar.

Visuals

“Flamingos,” by Mason Whitfield

For your Sunday enjoyment… a comic!

Ben & Winslow

Live Out Your Filthy, Goblin-Filled Dreams

Winslow has been involved in the fast-paced world of goblin erotica since at least 2012, when he hired a slightly defective Japanese robot to help him illustrate comics. Looking back at that older comic, it certainly seems… prescient.