Sun-Min, you all right today, my teacher asked. It could have been any morning during that winter that stung like numbness until late April. It was a little before eight in the morning and barely light outside. Thick grey was on the forecast. On days like that you could taste the air. It was soggy […]
A few months ago, I caught myself on a Saturday evening at the dining room table while the kidlets watched Season 2 of The Muppet Show in the adjoining living room. I had spent the entire day alternating between working on a new song that had emerged from some noodling on my guitar, and trying […]
I keep the brown blur in my peripheral vision and trudge up hill, stinking of sweat and Deep Woods Off. A few yards off the trail, the canine dervish whirls her speckled body, thick neck thrashing in the air. She springs high on muscular legs and drops, scraping her face in the dirt, raging to […]
chlorine is one of those smells that reminds me of home and the first time i tried to kill myself how if you were one of those kids and i was whose parents dropped you off at the pool because it was cheaper than summer camp you know an indoor pool is one of those […]
On the morning of her twenty-eighth birthday, nearly six months after the birth of our daughter, my wife Emily forgot how to talk. It was Live-Through-History Day at Crestview Elementary, an invention of my own, and my class of sixth-graders had risen to the occasion. Around the room were icons in miniature: George Washington, Albert […]
and I ate all the sweet potatoes. I’m sorry. The raspberries, the honey, that locket you gave me. They’re gone. I was so hungry. I ate the metronome and the black bear skull we keep on the bookshelf. I ate the books. I ate the empty frame on the wall. And our bed— the mattress […]
“Ten baht each! Fifteen baht for two,” Rehan shouted, standing at one of the busiest intersections in Bangkok. Just like any other boys selling goods on the road, he strode between the cars and motorcycles, pulling his cart. He smiled big; that’s what his dad—God rest his soul—once taught him. Smile—that’s how he sold flowers […]
a child unearths a charm I gave to you. Sand weathered the face of St. Michael into a tarnished silhouette, the vow cut into the silver on the back no longer reads “more than my own life.” A whisper of distorted letters remain as estranged to this child as we are now to each other. […]
in this whiskey bottle sky night the sidewalks purple greased with moon flooded poplar shadows: I walk toward hummingbirds’ wings, the morning green: snapdragons, daffodils trained to bow by an earlier rain: toward the kimono flutters of a water’s edge. John Walser, an associate professor at Marian University in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, holds a […]
Have you ever wondered what it is the moon is doing when it’s up there? Hanging in the night sky? Well, don’t. It’s a silly question. The moon is obviously doing what the rest of us are doing when the sun is down. Sleeping. However, there are nights when the moon can’t sleep. When the […]
I found this perfect song. It’s a sort of jazz-gospel thing I lifted from one of my dad’s playlists, totally not what I’m normally into, but I like the groove. There’s a little organ intro that I use for warm-up stretches, then it slips into this steady beat for ten crazy-long minutes that builds perfectly […]
Taleb stood at the far end of the Town Hall lodge, peering at the parchment that had been tacked to the wall. RULES FOR WISHING DAY You must be at least 16 years old to participate. One wish per person. Wishes cannot be given away. Wishes cannot be used to do harm. Death is permanent. […]
Women draped over pianos like spilled drinks, wearing push-up bras and corsets, trying to become long-stemmed wine glasses. A midget in a black suit paints shadows on the floor; he has Peter Lorre’s eyes. Breath smells like cheap scotch, men with broad shoulders and smoke for bones sit at the bar and peel their squints […]
And you cause all the horses in me to hurtle their shoulders against stable walls purpling hay with their thick dripping hunger bruising black boards with their crescent moon hooves And you cause all the kites in me to sing as they singe in the bright teeth of lightning fluttering paper dissolving to ashes twisting […]
After he was gone, she looked for him to return, perhaps as a bulldog, a stag or tusked-boar. She did not expect this parrot, perched on her sill, preening and carrying on conversation. Flying, it seems, exhilarates him, and he enjoys the perspective on earthbound life. Treetops and leaves create a kind of jazz with […]
You know those days, where you sit down to a blank page and everything is going right? Every sentence feels plucked down perfectly from the ether—those writers that you thought were bullshitting when they said: “Oh, the story came to me from somewhere else, as though it were a gift—I was just the medium,” […]
for Will & Howard * * * Walking Lower Wacker in Chicago, we debate how strictly vegan you’ll raise your son as snow melts and fills the shoes we all, January ill-equipped, have worn here. Will’s yellow sneakers, Howard’s loafers, my bright green Adidas. You will raise, your son, the one […]
Forget this aging maw of yellowed keys, more flat than sharp, beating wrong notes on twisted strings. Ignore the film of dust on the wobbly bench overstuffed with music no one plays or even cares to hum. Avoid the bad keys, the ones that stick and stutter, the ones that are ashamed of being silent […]
Creating superheroes, one decline at a time! Silver linings, right? Recently, this article by Liz Kay has been making the rounds of the internet—and for good reason, it’s a very thoughtful article that really helps a working writer frame the declines they’ll inevitably receive and put them in perspective. We believe in transparency at […]
Most writers start out on one side of the screen, but the more committed we become to our craft, the more we realize the importance of participating in the literary community we’d like to be a part of—and for many writers, this translates to a donation of time and effort by working on a literary […]
3:48am Sleepless. Not just for a string of nights, but for several months. Is this what dying feels like?
The anarchists must be somewhere says the orange man in the sun hat…
Hello, fellow scribblers! We need to talk about what you are going to do next. I, myself, am nearing the end of my MFA experience and have to make certain life decisions. Like what to do with a time in my life called Post MFA. I believe this is something like menopause; a state that […]
Hello! How are you, my fellow laureates? It’s getting to be the end of the submission cycle for winter/spring journals. We are tired people. So many submissions! It’s also that time of year when we all pull out our calculators, or ask someone, anyone better at math to crunch the numbers, or we just give […]
Hello! Welcome back, you crazy Bannagahammers! While licking my wounds from my latest rejection, I’ve been taking a LOT of Buzzfeed quizzes. Evidently, I am not very 90s (which was weird since that was the decade of my youth), however, when I took the “What Era of Rock Are You?” quiz, I got 90s indie […]
My niece clutches the kitchen doorjamb, her brown eyes wide. Her face is streaked with something dark—mud, dirt, ash. Her thin hair is flyaway, thin, uncombed. “There’s monsters in the bushes…”
I’ve found you Imposter Erect against the araceae backdrop Stealing your neighbour’s hue…
Hello, fellow pen dancers! Let’s talk about the hardest part of writing. And no, it’s not giving a reading, like I said last week. Submitting your work is terrifying. Putting your work out there to be judged and scrutinized seems to be the most nerve wracking part of the business of writing. I’ve been thinking […]
Hello, word workers! We need to talk. We need to have the talk… Nobody wants to talk about this with other writers, but the best form of communication is honesty. Writers, when you read your work to other people, make sure to make it good. I know, I know, this is the hardest part […]
My mother moved in with me once icicles began to form like claws on my fingertips…
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