He likes his own room, but he likes mine more. He's five. Half the time, if he had his way he would climb back inside me. He can never get close enough. Half the time. The other half he's complaining. Scowling. "You're interfering with my personal space!" Like he's breaking up with me.
So when he stands there, waiting, in the corner, and he asks if he can share our room, our bed, our space, I do what any rational human would do. And that's to pick him up and hold him, smell his head, that getting-bigger head, and say,...
Baby, it's just one of those things. You dream of hexagons and get triangles. You hope for a bit of moonshine on your paperback and a black cloud splits her in two.
You concentrate on windows and carbon paper and a pigeon drops dead on the ledge. It's not the city or the suburbs. It's just everything.
Me? I work in a cubicle. That's the shape I'm in.
When I was 12, I went to sea. When I was 12 and 1/16th, I knew it had been a terrible idea after all and swam for shore. Shore turned out to be not where I started. I ate monkey brains with a wooden spoon, I wore voluminous silk pants in a brighter blue than had ever been seen before in my hometown so far away, I stole. It was a fine adventure. When I arrived home, dusty and below the dust a crusty layer of salt, and below the crusty layer of salt my skin nut brown, I was...
The gate closed behind them. Like a thunderous blast of insecurity they were shunned, abolished, removed from the society that their father so desperately tried to control. Sarah turned, taking hold of her younger sisters hand and began walking, but she wouldn't move.
"Damnit, c'mon Michelle! They've thrown us out, our dumbass father screwed up, and now we're the ones paying for it!"
"But daddy was trying so hard, he only wanted to help-"
Sarah slapped Michelle across the face, tears breaking fourth along side the ear shattering sound of flesh smashing into flesh.
"Dad messed up, he died, and...
She sang like a ghost in a fog.
Dew on the saxophones,
Rain on the drum kit.
The napkin read,
"Remember, it's the 1900's."
It was always almost dawn,
never fully light.
The fog never lifted,
the ghost always whispered.
The dream had been wonderful, yet it would never be real. All property already let. Already sold. Already gone.
"Renting or buying?" The neat young executive type, sipping his coffee next to me, pointed at the property paper. I'd been looking for 6 months and it was killing me.
"It's murder." I shifted to give him space to sit, and sighed. "I own a small shit hole I've got to get out of. You an Estate Agent?"
"No, but these guys will get you somewhere to rest your bones…" My gaze followed his finger to a small ad tucked under...
The water was clear but her conscience was not.
Carla gazed into the crystal goblet's depths, the sparkling liquid reflecting the sunlight that filtered through the kitchen's old fashioned windows. It was one of the things that originally attracted them to the old, refurbished barn. The glass irregular, thicker at the bottom, letting the natural light unevenly through its depths, like the sun seen from underwater.
Carla smiled at the memory. They had been happier then. Happy and in love and carefree, despite the financial uncertainty of starting a new life together. But they had scrimped and saved for their...
I'm with stupid remarked the t-shirt. Very appropriate I thought considering the look on his face as he and his friend harried the younger boy. I wanted to step in but I had always shied away from confrontation. "If it gets and worse I'll step in" I told myself, hoping it wouldn't. In my reverie I never noticed who pulled the knife not that that mattered much, the result was still the same. He must have been stupid to have carried it with him.
"You don't like her, do you?"
"I don't have to."
He glanced at her, although kept his eyes on the road. "You have to try."
"Really, my feelings towards her don't matter, what matters is that you like her, and she likes you." Her feathers were ruffled now as she looked out of the window, most decidedly not at him. "Besides. I am trying."
"Then maybe you should try harder."
They didn't speak, the sounds of the engine the only thing keeping them from awkward silence.
"The others all like her."
"I don't have to like everyone - "
"You...
his is what it’s like when you get lost. the thorns of red vines stick into your fingertips as you try to shield your face. your feet kick up the smell of old leaves, and it makes you think of suburban autumnal piles, of the hot cider that your father always made you. it’s strange to think of it now. you’re so far in, working your way towards the belly of the beast. what was waiting for you there? you stop for a moment. you are having queer thoughts. it’s then you feel the change. your hair is the color...