Rails

The fine edges of the table dig into her fingers when she lifts them to see what’s been gathering there. What she finds is like a pile of corpses already starting to rot. The fraying of old wires make the machines start to think a little differently, and keep secrets like a human would. Sometimes […]

Altars

Stuffing everything you can into a suitcase. Leaving all the motor mouthed spectators in their seats with the lights down, expecting more after the intermission, only to be disappointed. So much of the writing on the walls is about making us forget whose life we’re actually in. Like curved mirrors they distort what could be […]

Repeat

Messages on fake phones. Familiar cars in the driveway. The woman two houses down has a bad habit of taking in all kinds of strays. Kids with giant headphones stare out the school bus windows in the early mornings before the sun is up. They are pretending the music in their playlists are their theme […]

Late May

Hanging out, walking down the narrow walkways they put on the sides of steel bridges. Going down all the hills in the neighborhood is a lot easier than making your way back up them. A bent nail is driven into old boards they salvaged to make themselves a back deck, it’s holding together just about […]

Under The Pine Needles

The smoke at the back of her throat makes her feel like she’s been yelling her whole life. Which she has, but that’s beside the point. The real truth is in what caused her to raise her voice in the first place. Another day at the machine carving out metal circles with a mill and […]

Black Curtain

Night time rats cross empty streets and two people walking take note of how the water tower lines up with the center of the road. Taking direct paths through the grass while running late; they draft excuses in their heads. Metal tables slide against the concrete, pushed by the wind, and grind claw marks into […]

Broke

Paper faces hanging in the hallways pieced together with crumpled construction paper, and plastic eyes. They aren’t allowed to go near the squirrels that hang out below the walnut tree. Instead they just look at them from far away and toss them the crust from their sandwiches. Cold blood on the metal chains that connect […]

Sequence

Over packed power strips buzz just loud enough to drown out the people outside. When she walks up the stairs to the balcony where her apartment is; she stops three steps shy of the top and has a staring contest with a lizard trying to blend in with the grass. Rows of people pour out […]

Separate

Nodding off on the clock when no one watches. There is a poster with distorted colors crudely folded in the corner by the potted plant. Carpeted stairs charge the wool in their socks and shocks their hands when they make contact with the banister. Unlocking old doors with bent coat hangers to see where they […]

Path

There is a solid line painted in the middle of her face. It’s red and continues down the center of her torso past her belly button. She sits still on the side of the path I am walking and looks surprised to see anyone else out there. All the trees in this forest have thorns […]