Pantry

Cheap mulch the color of the desert, full of pink flowers all bred to look exactly the same, all trimmed to restrain any grit; never able to spread out toward the sun, tamed to look beautiful and never die. At the edge of their world is a parking lot where people line up for food […]

Electricity

Unloading guns to count the bullets, each of them with faces drawn on them like missiles on a fighter plane. We do our part every day, but no one really knows where it’s all going, what final picture our collective effort is painting. I’m becoming more doubtful that it is beautiful. People wash their faces […]

With Nothing

That moment in a movie when the sinister music starts to play, and your gut sinks slowly like a ship that is taking on water. Dissonant piano chords chopping at your eardrums, breaking glass bottles against the bar until there are no more. A photograph that’s hard to look at because it shows you something […]

Mood Ring

The window was open letting in cold air that slowly woke her up. There was a note, on the crocheted blanket, next to her that said he just ran to the store. As she rubbed her eyes to clear her sight she thought back on the other night, and the two of them holding hands […]

Morning

A flooded elevator shaft taken over by fish with their dead motionless eyes. The fancy carpet laden with floral imagery, and the Art Deco door frames now fading away into dull featureless wreckage. A hole in the wall tavern where the city would gather and express its angst in vulgar conversations, tight dresses, and music […]

A Take On Things, To Take Or Leave

No one is thinking about you. That isn’t something to be upset about. They are all caught up with themselves like spiders stuck in their own webs. The way they struggle against the thread still looks like they’re coming after you, but again, they aren’t, so don’t be afraid. Resentful thoughts and imaginary arguments are […]

Missed Phone Calls

I let the phone ring and feel guilty, paralyzed, and tired. I find faces in the mold on the ceiling tiles. None of them are happy. Some would claim we’re never forced to make excuses. That our lives are like self cut canyons and as the rain we can make them any shape we want. […]