Life is like a sharp stick - used competently, it can be a tool to affect real and lasting change, and a vessel to new and fantastic places.

But most people will probably just hurt themselves....

The pigeons squatting in the courtyard - they didn’t live there as far as I could tell, there were no nests; but they never really seemed to leave either - formed a constant din of squawks and coos and other mildly annoying noises. They beat back and forth against each other, ever-shifting, like a foul-smelling, feathery tide.

“Ama,” little brother was saying. Ama, because he couldn’t - or wouldn...

Tommy Masterson’s mother looked him over. She grabbed him by the chin and twisted his face this way and that, making little noises of dissaproval as she ticked off items on some hidden checklist.

She ran her thumb across his lips, stopping at the corner where a dab of blood had dried. She pulled his eyes level with hers and, putting her forefinger beneath the left one, pressed firmly at its puffe...

The old man lay in his bed, his breath shallow, each rise and fall of his chest a slow, measured struggle. Outside, the soft murmur of a fading day filtered through the open window—leaves rustling in the gentle evening breeze, the last call of a bird settling in for the night.

He’d always loved the quiet at this hour. But tonight, the stillness seemed to carry more weight. His vision blurred, un...

Roses are red

The violets are dead

These are just meaningless

Words in my head...

I am made entirely of flaws,

stitched together by good intentions,

Prone to error without cause

Known to leap but fail to mention

This or that

Some little thing

Just a trifle, really

But despite its size

A bee still stings

So at the risk of sounding silly

Accept from me

This apology

Know the contours of my heart

Hear my stupid, throaty pleas

Don’t let me tear us apart

I am bad

And you are good

I...

She painted pretty faces

Pretended everything’s alright

But the truth finally came to light

He wiped away the tears

Kept them hidden out of sight

But the truth finally came to light

They fought to keep their secrets

Yeah they tried with all their might

Never talked about the many things

That kept them up at night

Avoided disagreement

But sometimes life is worth the fight

The truth finally ...

“I have to pick up my wife,” the man says to me, without provocation.

“O..k?”

“I know, why would I tell a perfect stranger that I have to pick up my wife. On the bus of all places. Do you know what kind of people ride a bus? Well, I ride a bus, and so do you and you don’t look like a bad person. Well, not too bad anyway. Did you know buses were invented in Germany? I don’t know why but that jus...

The stars were what she liked most about the sky

Then, they started to fall

One by one they disappeared from view

Until there were none at all

She sat in her window, her eyes affixed,

To the infinite, endless night

For what, she wondered, perhaps just to ponder

The memory of the thing she once knew as light

How lonely it felt, this empty abyss,

this deep and dreamless sleep

This probing, gnawin...

It was 7pm in Wisteria. On Main Street, Sadie Kimble flipped the big blue sign in her store window. “Cl😊sed,” it read, since some years before her daughter colored in the O and made it a smiley face.

Down the block, the giant flood lights over Hank’s Auto switched off and Hank’s brother, Earl, pulled chains across the entrance and exit.

At Suwanee Bank, young Lydia Nix exited in a huff. She dro...