A drop of blood in the river fades,
red dusk falling beyond the water.
Remember how the moon threw silver
at our tongues? I loved you for the way
you cared for speckled things: our dappled
Manymuch people were lostmissedperished during the most recent fightquarrelclashes around and on the side inside of the hospital.
Collateral damageharm is expected; no biasedpartialunrequited damageharm was confirmedprovensatisfied on any particulardefinite side at all, according to unbiasedunbalanced indifferentunspecified observerswatchersspectators.
Bodies were buriedputthrown as respectfully as possible (it wasn’t possible).
Thursday nights are always a little tense, but especially now, less than a week before Christmas. We are on edge; the clots of snow in the road, the family time, none of it helps. We meet in a classroom in the community center at 8pm. The rest of the building is dark, yawning shadows cast over our faces. It smells like paint and gym ball plastic.
Lawani Sunday deals with important social issues with a strong emphasis on the subject of the position of women in society. His paintings tell stories that concern each person one way or another. Lawani’s art speaks directly to compassion and empathy in the depths of our soul. Thus, his work becomes part of the spiritual world.
As an artist, my goal is to capture the unique essence of each person I paint. As well, I bring their personality, emotions and expressions alive through portraiture.
My mom was a vivacious person. She had bright blue eyes that matched her personality, a roar of a laugh that could make an entire theater laugh in response, and compassion that spread to every person with whom she came in contact. She was only fifty-one when she died, but she lived a life full of love and laughter, sharing it with those she worked with.
All you need to do is marry some decent boy and settle down, is what my father told me every time I asked about college. There are no decent boys in this town, is what I’d answer. Then he’d call me ungrateful. Then I’d slam the door to my room, the tiniest space in the house—more an oversized closet than a real bedroom
The Singulartarian Mind-Uploaders might be onto something. Their name says it all: We will defy death by uploading our thought patterns, memories, and whatever else makes up the mind onto a computer, enabling us to live…virtually. But I’m picky and demanding it seems. I want to live IRL.
Through the tender bone
you only see a gaping hole,
point out just how hollow
this pelvis is—so full of sky,
the moon phasing,
Growing up in the 80s and 90s, the term “creative nonfiction” hadn’t yet assembled itself into a term, or at least I hadn’t come across it. In middle school, we studied autobiographies and essays by Anne Frank, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Ben Franklin. To my young self, these writers came with a stamp of authority because they could say, “I actually lived this.”
At approximately 2:00 p.m. on June 18, 2023, I learned of something that I thought was certain to change the world forever. It began like any other paradigm shift in recent memory. I learned about it the same way I learned about COVID-19, January 6th, Russia invading Ukraine, etc.—the same way anyone learns about any breaking news nowadays—by refreshing my newsfeed
The first book I remember enjoying was Nose Is Not Toes by Glenn Doman. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was designed not just to teach you how to read, but as an aid in developing cognitive and intellectual ability.
Rx:
men’s daily multivitamin/one per day in the morning
Zoloft/100 mg per day in the morning, watch for signs of hypomania
Atenolol/50 mg per day, perhaps at night, for blood pressure
monthly massage membership: $60/one hour session, once a month
I’m not good at growing things. My tomato plants always wither and brown. One of the apples became quarter-sized until it shriveled and died, and the guava, fig, and pomegranate lost the few flowers they had.
It’s my fault. I like the idea of plants, but it’s hard to maintain a routine. I forget to water, rarely prune or fertilize.
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