I hadn’t seen the sun in about 20 years, give or take, and it has been the best 20 years of my life. So when I finally could again, I was in for quite a shock. It was so yellow and bright, and I had to close my eyes tight enough to see red. Shocking. Painful. My pale skin scorched in the sun, and I was unable to move as it filled my being with the very warmth I had been hoping to avoid. 

And the ...

“Such confessions of love should only be spoken rarely, as it makes it more special,” I said to my blushing bride. “It got old, really, when my parents would confess their love every morning and night, like it was a chore that came after doing the dishes. I vow to make love special, my dear.” 

“But words don’t make love special. Actions do.” 

“And words are actions, are they not, my dear?” 

She...

The winds whistled through every crack and crevice in my wooden weight. It got cold in the winter. Too cold. And they never got any easier–or warmer–as my wood was worn down from careless feet. But oh the things I’ve seen, or rather felt, as the trees blessed me with everything but those precious eyes the humans always spoke of. _If walls could talk_, bleh, well what about the floors, we talk back...

I never liked being chosen last. Having to watch everyone stand up before me, determined faces, with a hint of relief, as they stepped up to their fate. I spent my entire life having to be last. Last to be chosen during games. Last to be chosen in relationships. It seemed as though that was my destiny from the very beginning, as I was even born last.

“Grant,” the suited man called next, and the g...

I don’t regret aging, not entirely. They say it is a privilege to age, is it not? To watch your back bend against time and your face wrinkle with pride. Not being able to move. Not being able to speak without someone saying “what?” at least twice before you inevitably give up. Aging is just great. I wouldn’t change it for the world, really. 

I inched across the barren land, knees buckling from th...

“Oh, those are beautiful,” he said to the old woman. Her diamond necklace shone and sparkled when she inched her walker forward. “The diamonds, I mean.”

The old woman flashed a toothy smile, gripping her walker as if she might fall over. “What a kind young man. Would you like to hear how I got them?”

“Please.” He put down the food tray he was supposed to carry to room 209. “I’ve always been fasc...

The only thing Jane ever seemed to care about was gossip. Who went where? Who did they see? What did they do? It bordered on obsessive, almost consuming. But Jane was also very willing to share her findings, and had a skilled way of prying things out of people. Nobody seemed to be able to resist her, even me, even when I was trying my very hardest to maneuver around her mind games.

“You called me...

Life is like a sharp stick, both overlooked, until you find yourself suddenly without it. _Oh, my dear sharp stick_, I thought as I lay in the dry dirt, _where have you gone?_ My shrinking stomach grumbled and groaned, loudly enough to shake the birds from the trees. I was suddenly very aware of life, in this moment, as it was about to be taken away from me, without rhyme or reason.

Where was my ...

I sit here in this over-cluttered house

Looking at each wall, donned in a blood-stained blouse

All of my claw-imprinted artifacts 

Laying about in piles of packs

Like a museum that only I attend 

WIth broken bones that do not bend 

It could have been years 

Since I last saw any of my dears 

It is hard to remember now 

Stuck on my permanently pinched brow 

The days I left behind

My face heavily li...

I always hated that damn marble wall. It was too gray. Too tall. Too utterly depressing. Every time I had to go, it was as if a million tiny claws were dragging me there by my tailbone. So I got down on my knees, as I always did, and talked to a wall that never talked back. 

“What do I do now?” I asked the sad stone. 

It sat there, as walls do, unmoving and smooth. This wall that I had known my ...