The audience stared open mouthed at me. I didn't know if I should cover up or keep dancing. Who would have thought I would have fallen out of my costume? A wardrobe malfunction, that's what they called it.
So I did what I thought was the right thing to do. I pushed myself back into the low-cut tube top and kept on dancing.
It wasn't like I was a double D floating through the air as the tassels twisted blindly around. I could fudge a C on a cold day.
I just hope someday I will live down the day...
"So, did your dog eat your homework?"
"No... You won't believe me so it doesn't matter anyway."
"You always have had a vivid imagination. Which I take pains to appreciate. Go ahead. Why weren't you able to prepare for the test?"
"I had been studying for thirty minutes - which is why I aced the radicands portion - when all the sudden there was a rumbling groaning sound from next door. I couldn't focus. I looked outside my window and across the alleyway was a huge green bass flopping about screaming."
"Uh?"
I would have otherwise been absolutely fine. Everything was going according to plan. We were doing it. Oh, it was bliss.
Never would I have thought that events would turn the way they did. Oh it began with just a simple slip. The gravel underneath my feet began to shake. The panels seemed to slip from below. But my friend was convinced we would be okay. I told him it was a terrible idea. Sneaking onto random roofs. What were we thinking?
Well, I wasn't, that's for sure. I'm not sure if he was thinking or not, either. But he...
Midnight on the roof and I am still standing in the same place he left me. This wasn't what I had planned; losing my virginity on the tar and gravel roof of the Shop and Save. Especially when the guy that took it was hiding from the cops.
His breath smelled like gummy worms as he kissed me. His hands cold as icebergs, I just wanted it over and done. I was tired of being the only nineteen year old that never knew what it felt like to...you know, do it.
I didn't expect it to be so quick. Fast...
Shape.
His kneaded the dough, enjoying it's firm elasticity beneath his fingers. Shape.
Celeste was like that. Firm. Yet pliable. She let him bend her to his will with little resistance. And god damn... she had a shape.
As he coaxed the dough into long snakes, visions of Celeste's creamy smooth skin flooded his memory. His hands worked on autopilot, braiding the challah loaf. What they really wanted to be doing was kneading her delicious rear end.
He loved the ripples each time he spanked her full bottom.
Shape. He admired his challah loaf.
Lost but he couldn't stop hearing those footsteps, in his mind. They kept going on and on. Jack could hear his footsteps echoing.
Jack sat there engulfed in smoke – hoping the ash-filled clouds would somehow shield him from the pain.
Her body flew through the air, so unnaturally, like a bird caught in a tornado. The blood cascading down her forehead like a waterfall of emotion.
Her delicate face was transformed into a mask – a crimson mask of blood and agony. The smell of burnt rubber and panic in the air. It was electric. Why did she have...
He ducks out of my way and a flash of white pain shoots up my arm. I look up and see the cracks in the wall left from the impact of my fist. I ball and unball my fist a few times and try to push the pain out of my mind. A sharp cry comes from somewhere and I think it might be my own voice. I lift a hand to my head and my fingers come away bright red. When did I hit my head? I push myself up from the floor and try to ignore the black...
Fourteen fish
bunched
like a silver
artichoke
They are traveling
farther
than their fathers
who never
left the river
Their futures
are
in lemons
and
bread crumbs
Waves of black ink, striking against the porcelain-like skin of my hand. They twist around my fingers and across the back of my hand, turning and sweeping. I stare at the lines and swirls on my hand and try to remember. I try to think back to remember how they got there. I try to think of something, anything that might give me a clue to what it means but nothing comes. My classmates brush past my and I can feel their eyes boring into me. Yeah, I know it's weird but I'm sure it means something. It has to....
"The water was clear," he kept insisting.
We all had been there. There were pictures, and a video somewhere posted on youtube. The water had been far from clear. Anything but clear. It was thick almost to the point of gummy with chocolate brown sediment, and tiny detritus the likes of which I didn't want to contemplate.
"I saw it," he said. "Perfectly clear. Purified. He was standing in the middle of it, and he made it clean by his presence. I tell you I saw him!"
We all said we believed him. Some even went further than that.
"Yes,...