This is what I knew of tragedy: run as far and as fast as you possibly can. The plane touched down on red African dust exactly five months and two weeks after the death of my mother. My shoulders were sore from hunching under the weight of her loss, and my legs burned with the fire of the restless. My heart slowed down the longer I stayed on that plane.
First century CE. Rome is marching. Cities and temples are falling. In a fictitious kingdom by the Black Sea named Dhawosia, Princess Andrada, sole heir to the throne, wants to help her father unite his infighting chieftains against the growing Roman threat. But when she fails the trials they demanded of her, her father marries her off to a neighboring king
My grandparents shocked everyone at their Golden Anniversary when they informed us that they would be taking a break from their relationship. I for one did not know this was something grandparents were allowed to do. If you made it fifty years, you are expected to get all the way through the end
Lying down underneath a cloudless sapphire blue sky, I felt the sun’s rays caress my naked body like warm fingers. I felt the blood thrumming through my veins, warmed by the baths and exhilarated by the fresh air. A small white towel lay between my legs, a mediocre curtain of modesty, but it didn’t matter.
Tweets I Could Have Tweeted While I was at the Leighton Artists Colony Writer at Banff Centre for the Arts & Creativity in Canada, Except That I Quit Social Media Cold Turkey for the Purpose of My Writing Residency (from a human with anger, anxiety, energy, solitude, loneliness, panic, and procrastination problems)
I used to dream about a certain person nearly every night. It has been a long time since we last spoke. But in the dream, we have been talking forever, as long as it takes for the sun to rise in the east and set in the west.
THE ANCIENT ART OF STORYTELLING was once a vibrant feature of the Arab world. In days gone by, a storyteller could be found in a smoky cafe, delighting audiences with tales, both old and new.
They have buffalo lodge and they have ghost lodge and they have all these different styles of lodge. The Lakota. Originally from Minnesota but spent the last 200 years in the Dakotas and that’s where I… so in 1978, you know about the freedom of religion act?
On the backseat of the bike, heat as hot as I could ever have imagined it being, air heavy and adulterated with fumes and dust alike. The dust which sticks to the skin like sand against a moist cloth, layering it with an evenly spread film of dirt.
My father wears baseball caps on our hikes to the beaver pond. The little hair he’s had has always been sparse and gray, and the hats are to protect his exposed head from the cold, the sun, or both. In old photos his hair is thick, like mine, a black storm cloud swirling around his head.
My first encounter with a raccoon occurred one autumn morning when I looked out the window and saw something large and furry stuffed into our homemade box-like bird feeder. It appeared to be asleep. I turned off the sink, slipped on my sandals, picked out a good stick, and wandered over to inspect…
I walked through the walls of the Louvre
and noticed the Hall of Sculptures was still
asleep. I tiptoed in and took a deep breath.
As I exhaled slowly, a springtime breeze,
Winged Victory of Samothrace shook
out her wings. Her marble gown,
“You came here and took the jobs our fathers built for us.”
We exploit our talents in the fertile fields, in the
shadows of portable toilets, in asparagus rows retching,
wrapping ripped rags around numb fingers for
a nightshift at the Blue Smoke Slaughterhouse.
We want fires that burn. Poems that hurt. Words that are so painstakingly blunt they break
barriers. People that are so honest it brings others to their knees.
Eventually, they will beg and they will plead. “Please end your statement with a period and not
a dagger.”
The painted buntings used to pair among
the fractured feelings
neither bunting nor feeling,
came to assist their harvest
what was settled among the field, a Hairy bear (one that laughed)
slinked in from the wilderness
Three boys, bare-backed, draped elbows
over a life raft. It was a spring mid-day.
A fourth propelled himself into the air
drew up his knees to his chest
and cracked the surface, causing his friends
to shake their heads and dab at their eyes.
I wish you would take the time you need.
Enter and enter again until clarity comes
and you leave with all the answers.
We talk of the weather to avoid talk
of the things that matter,
The house was never silent after I was born, but not because of baby wails or shrieks. It was because of the TV. TV whispers woke me every morning and swayed me to sleep. The flickering light filled the hallway in a comforting glow that made the dark seem less menacing in the midst of night. It cloaked the actual silence, the short but frequent absences. More so, I’d come to know the TV as my mother.
Jurgen was skeptical. Cautiously, he tugged on the line to make sure the grappling hook had found its hold. It had. Stable as the cable seemed, though, it proved difficult for Jurgen to identify how, specifically, hijacking a 19th century galleon stranded in the gelid black waters of the Arctic Ocean might help him find a sense of purpose.
Brett invites me over after school to grind his rail, which is of little consequence to me, since I can barely ollie straight; but sometimes I can heelflip, which makes me believe in improvement and wards off the stomach-eating-reality that skateboarding, for me, cannot be sustained,
I walk down the highway today as cars rush by, travelers for the holiday hurrying to get to their destinations. It’s the day before Thanksgiving, and traffic is heavy. Across the road, I see a dead bird with distinctive feathers.
I spent the first moments of my life not really in it. When most babies are born, the process is straightforward. They come out. They cry. The doctors and nurses check a few things to make sure everything is working.
The plan was simple, the execution a bit tricky, but I was ready. Man, was I ready. Or maybe I was tired of trying to figure out what might go wrong. I just wanted to get going. We’d certainly spent enough time puzzling over the damn details.
Toshihiro arrived at the Osakako station fifteen minutes earlier than planned. As he left the subway, he realised the sun had already set while he was underground, making him feel as if he travelled to a place more distant.