Reading Time: 10 minutes I took the train on the red line from the industrial, refinery towns to the downtown exit near the University. I was early for my interview, so I had a chance to walk around. The Dress for Less discount clothing store where I’d bought my Read More …
Reading Time: < 1 minute Like anyone growing up, Glenda wondered if she would ever meet The One. When she was very small she heard adults talk in hushed voices about others who had found The One: Young women when they least expect it, some women when they thought they Read More …
Reading Time: 2 minutes I tried to keep my demeanor calm, but the other astronauts noticed my excitement. Who could blame me? I was finally going to set foot on a different world. After years trapped on a stupid rock, floating through space, I was finally going to discover Read More …
Reading Time: < 1 minute I’ll write my life into a book,Conveying every blood drop,Each of a thousand sliver deaths,Until its heart beats against its spine. You’ll grip & smudge & bend my pages,Misconstrue every breath and word,As sure as paper turns to ash,As sure as ink will fade.
Reading Time: 14 minutes “Kishar is coming.” As a production assistant, it was Olivia’s job to prescreen show applications. The principle of the show was simple: People who have never met their Internet sweetheart get to meet in person. Some had good stories but travel expenses made uniting them Read More …
Reading Time: < 1 minute Sometimes he snores Like the ocean,Like geese before winter takeoff For foreign skies. Each breath escapes, One of however many we have together. Sometimes he wheezes And I do not sleep.
Reading Time: < 1 minute Winter light shocks like a crime scene,Stabbing in from the side at a diagonal,Slashing through trees with harsh, yellowed beams. Backdrops become hazy with the blue gray of old animated cels.Frazzled Cyprus march along the lane,Pushing ahead of distant oak skeletons dimmed by the fogWhile Read More …
Reading Time: < 1 minute I watch you breathe in your sleepThe rhythmic hush-whooshing you makereminds me of the machines beside you. Every weekThe same machines murmured rumors of you,An automated proof of life. Now I lay beside you,Trying to envelope you like the womb again,Wondering if your breath is Read More …
Reading Time: < 1 minute 3 a.m. bottle feedingIn a room with no view.The sound of pouring rainDrums on the ceiling like impatient fingers on a diner counterWaiting My breasts no longer tingle with needles.They do not pour,They do not sprinkle. Irrational sensations of inadequacyStorm away in my chestAs the Read More …
Reading Time: < 1 minute I knowdeep in my belly, deep in that instinctive primate place,that HUMANS AREN’T MADE TO BE AIRBORNEAnd I book the aisle seat. But as I peek across the aisleout of a braver someone else’s windowI see distant isles of deep lavenderawash in violent peach seas.I Read More …
Reading Time: < 1 minute “I know that sound,” she said. She recognized the rhythmic nature of the thumping sound. Was it plumbing? A loose window screen? It sounded so familiar. The sound seemed like it was coming from everywhere. She looked around the inside of the house. She walked Read More …
Reading Time: 7 minutes The facts of the case were undisputed. The defendant had murdered a man in the heat of the moment. But what would the punishment be under the circumstances? There was no precedent for a scenario like it. The entire world was watching. Janine Gardner was Read More …
Reading Time: 4 minutes Very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am. The tension in the household gradually increased until I had no alternative but to kill him. My anxiety made me cautious up until the very end. The disease had sharpened my senses, and I felt every Read More …
Reading Time: 7 minutes She would never show it, but this was always her favorite part. It would be uncouth to appear like a braggart, and the men wouldn’t appreciate being made to feel like simpletons, so she was always careful to couch her statements in gentle guidance, rather Read More …
Reading Time: 4 minutes It started when his dentist recommended a night guard to stop popping enamel off the sides of his teeth. He was fitted with a custom plastic bit to grind so that he’d stop sliding his teeth across each other in his sleep. The night guard Read More …
Reading Time: 6 minutes It wasn’t in his glove box either. Where could he have put it? It hadn’t rolled under the car seat or into the back. How could he have been so careless with something that could save his life? The tremors returned as his blood pressure Read More …
Reading Time: 4 minutes I didn’t think much of the mist as it climbed over the distant hills. I hiked this trail often, and the fog usually burned off by the time I would get that far. It was a cool day, but the humidity and light breeze were Read More …
Reading Time: 2 minutes The trip? Well, firstly, it was dirty when we got there. I was amazed how much cleaning I had to do on my very first day of vacation! On top of that it was more crowded than we were expecting. Pardon? No, it wasn’t a Read More …
Reading Time: < 1 minute “Is… Is that how you READ?” she asked. I glanced up from my book with annoyance. “Of course.” The woman set her coffee cup down on my table and snatched my book out of my hand. I was furious, not only with her interruption but Read More …
Reading Time: 2 minutes The oyster butterfly (Phyciodes nacre) has a short life cycle, usually dying shortly after its pupal stage. It is incapable of defending itself against predators, but has none, as it is inedible. It dies usually because its mobility is restricted by its own physiological eccentricities. Read More …
Reading Time: 9 minutes Dear sirs, It was with great relief I read the recent news regarding the death of Sherlock Holmes at Reichenbach Falls. Although I regret to admit pleasure at the death of a fellow human being, I must admit to having borne a secret far too Read More …
Reading Time: 10 minutes You are such an asshole, Aaron. He couldn’t think of anything else. Here he was, driving through the middle of nowhere, braving dust storms, sinkholes, mountain climbing, and torrential rains for some dead son-of-a-bitch who couldn’t bother to plan a decent funeral before going off Read More …
Reading Time: < 1 minute There are some who try to inveigle Yoga students into thinking a kegel Is a Mula bandha lock, So imagine the shock When they discover it’s harder to finagle.
Reading Time: 6 minutes In the afternoons I play cards with my neighbor Blanco at the corner bistro. If you’re ever in the neighborhood around 2pm, we’ll be inside, first table by the door in front of the storefront window. We’ve been doing this for a while. At one point we Read More …
Reading Time: 6 minutes He’d been coming there for a long time. Sometimes he just stared up at the clouds. Sometimes he cried. Katie hated to see him upset. Sometimes it made her cry too. Sometimes, they had great, long talks about what they saw and did that day. Read More …
Reading Time: < 1 minute We set our dead into tidy rows Writing pages of graveyards, even though Whether they’re verses or curses Is known only to those Who can read it from either above or below.
Reading Time: 5 minutes He first saw her at the bookstore in the Poetry/Drama section. She was a redhead, his favorite hair color, and she wore it like his ex-girlfriend. (Not the crazy ex, but the one before that, the one he’d never get over.) It was his favorite Read More …
Reading Time: 2 minutes “Dying / is an art, like everything else. / I do it exceptionally well.” – Sylvia Plath, “Lady Lazarus” “And four black feet deep with/ Summer’s rotting rooks/ like Thomas Head’s and my time’s/ Unlamented, springless, passed.” – Assia Guttman Wevill, “Winter-End, Hertfordshire” Read More …
Reading Time: 10 minutes As he flipped through waiting room magazines, he tried to find one that would occupy his mind. He had been struggling with his body’s mutiny against him for months. At first he tried to convince himself it was just the normal act of aging, metabolism Read More …