NERVES, by Kaleena Madruga

Prose, chapbook, 40 pages, from Bottlecap Features. It is a strange thing to be human. We scratch and claw, we seek and swim. We use our hands, our voices, our hearts to make meaning. We are creatures, strange and aching. NERVES explores the absurdity of being a person through a collection of stories that face love, loss, birth, death, and all the moments in between. A woman seeks connection with a pet store goldfish, a couple navigates an animalistic transformation, and a dentist hides a dark secret. Through each tale, the rawest parts become exposed – the nerves. Kaleena Madruga received a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University and a Master of Fine Arts in the same field from Roosevelt University. Her previous work has been featured in The Conium Review, Swamp Pink, MAKE Literary Magazine, and Long Day Press, among others. Kaleena’s first book, a collection of essays entitled Does It Hurt?, was published in 2022. She lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.