Waves

Lines form symbols which turn waves into particles so we can make use of them. They force people to shovel shredded paper, held together with wet pulp from spruce trees, into their lunchboxes. They all walk to their jobs laughing and pointing to pictures of things they wish they had, on their phones. Never once […]

Breathing In The Cold

I am drinking at a bar getting scoffed at for asking too many questions. The T.V. in the corner has grease staining its plastic rim, no doubt put there by an angry patron who threw a sandwich due to the results of a football game. The bartender is a short woman in her forties with […]

Pieces

Transparent shapes roll across her eyes while she stretches out her back and reaches upward with her arms like there was something precious dangling above her. Damp missing puzzle pieces swell into soft caricatures of their former selves and no longer fit in with the rest of them. We suppose they could be dried off […]

The Fight

Sometimes the only way not to get bit is to let the bugs crawl all over you. Take all that fear and disgust that sits vibrating at the bottom of your throat and channel it into taking control of your limbs. The centipedes will eventually get bored of your soft skin and move on to […]

Night Under A Willow Tree

A couple of friends drove to the cemetery with dented shovels and some beer. They used tiny flashlights to scan the headstones in the areas where the moon wasn’t bright enough. Moths would scatter from the grave flowers when they felt the vibrations of their footsteps. The nectar in their stomachs bubbled and sloshed as […]

From The Start

The beginning of my day starts with a detailed analysis of all my past pain. I dwell on it while I scrub the back of my legs in the shower. It can be anything from times people gave me weird looks because I said I liked something they didn’t, or maybe being yelled at by […]

Parking Lot Scene

There’s a guy using two wrenches to drum on a metal mailbox that stands by itself in the parking lot of the local strip mall. This irritates the hockey coach in sunglasses trying to get cash from the drive through ATM about thirty yards away. He slaps the space above the cracked screen over and […]

No Thanks

You can keep all the golden scales that fall off the back of the dragon you’re chasing. I don’t want to spend my time sharpening spears and arrows without being able to use them myself. It’s easy to sit across from me at a table and say I’m not doing the right thing, but I […]

The Creature In The Tree

A creature made of gears fell from the top of a ridge and impaled itself on a small tree. Its jaws opened and closed with loud metal groans while the twigs and branches worked their way between the teeth of its inner mechanisms. Eventually it could no longer move and it’s only functioning systems were […]

The Fountain Pen

Numbers stick to us like magnets on a fridge. Even as we lay in pieces in a pile of rusted cars and melted plastic baby dolls. The scavengers circle over head fighting for minor clauses to be squeezed into the blind corners of mandatory documents. They dip their sharp beaks into the puncture wounds and […]