Hope

Dust settles on the sidewalk here, a chill in the air whistles through her hair and her hands. It’s all over now; of that she is entirely certain. The sparks are flying all over the place, catching the wind and shooting upward until they are nothing, back to...

Rooted

In the dark place sits the lion, curled up, caged. It breathes its own stink into everything, filling the small apartment with a dust that never seems to evade. Even if you think you’ve cleaned the place up, a ray of light will reveal the tiny particles still...

Clawed

It’s not past seven but the day is dark, a slow trickle of rain coming through the window. He was rough around the edges, the kind that would come into the kitchen with dirty hands after spending hours under a car; but it didn’t matter did it. She always...

Just Old Memories

It came in the mail early in the morning, a big fat package wrapped clumsily in packing tape. It was handed to me without the slight notion of it’s significance, the mailman smiling nonchalantly as he asked me to sign my name and absorb another three dollars for...

The Nice Room

I found an old note the other day, addressed to Dear beautiful girl. It was left among old note pads and papers in between ramblings typed out on my typewriter. The edges had become worn, and you could feel the bumps on the back of the page from where rough hands had...

Ashes

In the middle of the night, I am on fire. The house is quiet, and I can hear the rush of the city below me, nothing grows here. We are laying in the ruins of us, sleeping soundly in the ashes, the smoke clouding our lungs. I know you are awake, and you know I am too....

The Most

There was a girl on the subway, with big glassy eyes and red hair. You could see she had been crying, her eyes were red and puffy, their sadness magnified by the glasses that turned her eyes into big blue orbs. She was wearing headphones, but she saw me looking in her...

Association

She breathed light and fire into everything, whole but not quite, the type who has this little part you know you could stretch open. She begs you to come inside and let her know you mean something, that she means something. She tells you she is broken but she wears it...

A Fork In The Sidewalk

There was a fork in the sidewalk, I say this without sentimentality because it was just a thing in a place as most everything is. I don’t mean that there was a decision to be made or that there was something profound that would change my life in any given way,...

The Lonely

It was cold out. Not too cold out, but the wind was predictably chill this time of year and everyone knew it too. Scarves were tightened as an extra precaution and children were sent to school bundled up so high they looked like little marshmallow people. You would...