No one ever bought me a diamond ring, though one did drive across country pulling tiger lilies out of ditches and filled his truck bed with them to be mine. He opened the truck gate and those flowers glowed in the morning sun mightily. He was all salt sweat and tired from days of […]
Your protagonist has a broken wing, your protagonist is dying, your protagonist is idolized by a race that lived in the edges of your shadow. Your protagonist is shadow, your protagonist eats shadow, your protagonist is a carnival of black auroras. Your protagonist is writer’s block. Your protagonist is writing. Your protagonist is flying. Your […]
Yesterday I met my old barista Pippa, in the street… her red hair flowing, baby on her hip… and it was like watching my life on replay. “Remember when I used to pour your coffee? Remember when I thought that that was as good as life would get for me?” Did we both ask that […]
Have you ever seen a Travis Bean guitar? It has a solid aluminum neck and center section that runs through the guitar’s body, a T cutout – the pickups are directly mounted to the aluminum – the sound is incredible. I used to own one, or at least, I lived in the same house with […]
He hands you a bouquet of pink lilies, velvety soft beauties dripping dew. You put your face into the flowers to smell them, they lick your nose. He says “I’ve collected the tongues of all my lovers and arranged them just so.” You recoil as the petals move and wrap around one another. You realize […]
Starlings, like elementary particles, have their own spin and can react to other starlings’ movement in less than a hundredth of a second. Information flows through flocks of starlings instantaneously, which allows the birds to behave like fluid molecules at constant speeds. Scientists would rather believe that starlings behave like liquid helium than that flocks […]
The trophy wives gathered for brunch at the usual spot. Those that married pro athletes compared diamonds; artists’ wives compared hardships. “Oh honey, it’s 11.2 carats, for the first few weeks my finger ached from lifting it.” She looked tired. “Dinner last night was ramen and curried ketchup, but we’ve finally saved enough for ultramarine!” […]
Once, mother and I calculated the sum of my sick days and determined I’d lost two full school years of classes to pneumonia. It dawned on me today that the spottiness of my early education was more than just incongruous learning, it was a strange way to time travel. I would sleep, fever, and dream […]
She: “We lack context.” He: “You know, Em, words aren’t everything.” He then cut so much of who she was from their story she became a literary prop on which he could hang his coat. “This is perfect,” he sighed happily into the quiet, his collar hanging precariously from the hook she had become.
A woman wakes up and wonders what the day will bring. Breakfast? Coffee? Donuts? Eggs? Fantasy takes hold and brings her underwater snowstorms and brightly collapsing stars. Go on then she encourages her subconscious, stretching the sleep from her soul and soles… so delicious. (How she rose from her rest on the red couch and […]