My therapist says it’s normal for people to touch themselves. Ew, not like that. I mean, not sexually. She says it’s not weird, and that feels like the permission slip I need to do it whenever I can. I touch my knobby knees. I never feel like they point in the right direction. I poke […]
The man who had been nicknamed The Count wanted to know if I was a painter. “Not really,” I said. But I could see why he would think that. I was standing in the middle of the alley holding a heavy painter’s brush and looking down on a row of dusty cans of Benjamin-Moore blue, […]
No amount of pleading or pain meds could stop Mr. Villanueva from yowling like a depressed cat at night. After his roommate threatened to sue the hospital for emotional distress, the nurses decided that Mr. Villanueva deserved a private room. From that came my first candy striper assignment to convert Room 128, which stored pumps, […]
The trees were clustered so thickly now that Mischa could no longer pretend she wasn’t lost. She’d had to slow to a walk, too, not that it mattered much. When you’re not sure where you’re headed, a walk will get you there just as well as a run will. She looked down at her Garmin. […]
The dictionary tells us that a Blue Moon is the second full moon to occur in one month, a rather rare thing. But in the land of stories, a Blue Moon can mean something much more rare. Something very exciting indeed. * * * Four hundred twenty nine years ago, in a snug little village […]
Running Water When I would go over to my friends’ houses, I thought it was weird that their parents didn’t scream or hit them. I thought that maybe these parents behaved when company was over but that, surely, they had the same home life I did after I left, that my friends were tormented by […]
“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 […]
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. […]
When I crested the hill and caught my initial glimpse of Fort Westbrook, I began to feel for the first time that being uprooted from Jacksonville, moved to Virginia, left with my mom, sister, and a new house full of boxes while Dad shipped off to fight pirates—it might not be all bad. Living on […]
The Bronx is under siege. The smell of sulfur is everywhere. A cherry bomb goes off. And then another. With each mini-bomb, I edge closer to Moises until the noise melts away. But not too close. “This is crazy,” I say. Fear is a funny emotion. It can stop you dead in your tracks, all […]
“There are mermaids in the water,” Pa always began. This was the preface to my brother’s favorite story. Pa would tell us how, if you were still and silent long enough at the edge of the dock, you could spy the shimmering green-gray of their fish tails as they flashed and disappeared. He said this mysterious disturbance…
The counselor’s room is never still. It is churning pipes and an hour-off ticking clock and Friends Care! posters flapping on paint-thick walls and a heat of stories pushing themselves forward, tangling around each other. The students wiggle, fidget, shake in the armchair, as if fighting off their own words. * * […]
I’ve been trying to hold onto that perfect moment when you first wake up. In that moment nothing has substance. There is no conscious thought, just the bright light of a new day and you don’t remember anything at all. I’ve found if I hold my breath and don’t blink I can make that moment […]
I’m dead. I know what you’re thinking: teenage drama. Now you’re expecting me to say that I missed curfew, or failed math class, and my parents are going to kill me. I wish. I’ve been gone for almost a year. I don’t know why they call it “gone.” I’m still here. We’re all still here. […]
The Crystal Rainbows Centre in Morvale is the local loony bin—home for the ill at ease, nut house, window-lickers playground, or as some chavskanks (who have the experience to know) say: “a bit better than prison, innit.” Almost every kid gets terrorized by some older twat at school with horror stories about the place, about […]
On the same road, there lived a girl with feathers for hair and a boy poet who had to use a wheelchair. The boy lived in a small rented house, and he’d always had to use a wheelchair. But the girl, she lived in the large stripe-painted house…
My shadow seemed down when I was boxing it the other day. I’m not sure if that was the first time or what, I never paid much attention to my shadow unless we were boxing, and we only boxed when I was pissed so I probably wouldn’t have noticed even if it was. But this […]
Monday My fingertips hurt again. The quad is too noisy to be distracting; a chaos of first trimester stress. No internet for the loop of email, Hulu, Twitter. No service for texts from Mom. Just me and the music, pen trembling on the page. Focus abandons my brain, collecting instead like wax under my nails. […]
The black and white sign taped to Connor’s bedroom door said GO AWAY. I should have. Should have turned around, walked down to Fleming Lake, sat on the ledge above the cove, figured out a beat, taken out my notebook and written a thousand lines about how everywhere I looked I saw Carly’s eyes and […]
Everything was green. The way the sun shone down made everything seem brighter than it was. The arch of trees above my head should have provided a veil from the warm spring sunshine, but it didn’t. The sun still managed to shine on everything, even the tiny black ants scampering at the base of the […]
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