She awoke tied to a post. It hurt throughout her face. The stupid chloroform had probably affected her oxygen levels, so she breathed fresh air in great gasps. the man stood in front of her, staring at her. "Willing to show us now? there is still a harem in Sauti Arabia that's looking for a girl like you." he said softly. She responded by spitting on his shoes. He pulled out a rag and tried to press it to her face, but she wrapped her hands around the pole and kicked upward as hard as she could, catching him in...
Stepping slowly off the train, my eyes adjusted to the black blanket that cast itself over the old town in nowhere France, about three miles from the border of Belgium. Having no clue where I was, I tried to recount the previous events by fitting each individual awkward happening side by side, hoping their grooved edges matched so as the picture might unfold as a panorama landscape in my mind. Then, and only then, I might be able to tell myself why I had woken up in the black night, on a train in a foreign country that speaks a...
It was my "life's work," that's what they call such a thing, but it makes it sound so organised, like my life was something i contolled and I sensibly chose each morning to get up and expend my earthly energies on this tower. "You must have a lot of self-discipline" people say to me when I meet them at parties and we discuss our lives as though we see them clearly, as patterns of behaviour about which we can make broad statements. I try to answer, as best I can, saying something appropriately self-effacing.
What I'd like to tell them...
The lunch bell rang. At 11:32 the wide wooden doors would open, letting out the throngs, the odor, the leaden feet. I stood against the wall, my heels pressed against the cinder block. There were the girls in braces and the boys with large pimples on their noses. There were skinny legs in miniskirts and protruding Adam's apples. I wrinkled my nose at the stench of body spray and scented lip gloss and listened to the crunch of paper bags.
I watched them, but they didn't notice me. They grouped around tables like lions around drinking holes, each one in...
Write as you please,
In six minutes,
Like a breeze.
I fear that,
Without a prompt,
The words won't flow,
Compet-
ently.
So I'll leave you this poem,
With it's oddities and misrhymes,
Mismatched verse and rhythms,
Lines that run out of time.
Words that make no sense,
Lines that are too dense,
And of course you must remember,
In this chilly month of September,
That poetry doesn't have to rhyme.
"This, class, is an example of a cemetery. Does anyone know what a cemetery was?"
"A cemetery was a place where bodies were buried up until the last century when death was eradicated."
"Yes. That is correct. It is quite sad, isn't it?"
There was blood on my pillow. It's 6 a.m. and there is blood on my pillow. I started to try and remember what happened the night bfore. I struggled to remember, but then it hit me.
Last night I had gone to dinner with friends. We laughed, we ate, we drank. It was a good time. I was out really late and since i wasnt far from my home, I decided to walk. Thinking back to it, it was a bad idea.
On my way home i had to pass through a dark ally. I started hear strange noises. It...
I have anxiety issues okay? I swear every time I come here its the same goddamn thing. All I need is to walk, so I approach the edge and give myself a minuscule pep-talk. "You can do it George, just a couple of steps", every day its the same thing and everyday.. I chicken out. I know, I know, ha.ha. very funny but this is a serious problem! How am I supposed to go anywhere in my short life when I literally can't go anywhere. Every time I approach that curb, the cars seeming to fly by, horns honking and...
Her mother was going to kill them when they got home, but she couldn't help it. Flinging her legs high above the corn that surrounded them, she gave a happy giggle and sighed.
"What are you thinking of now?" Greg asked her, pressing a kiss to her hair as he stretched out an arm across her stomach.
"I was thinking of mother, and the stories she used to tell of boys in the corn fields." She put on a high pitched voice, eerily close to her mother's pitch, "they're only after one thing Rose. One thing!" Greg gave the girl...
The picnic table was empty still, except for a few crumbs from the previous diners. A trail of ants crawled over the splintered boards in to reach the bits of old bun. Theo watched them, beer in hand, as he waited for his father-in-law to finish grilling the food.
It was the first warm, sunny day of the year and Theo was joining his wife's family for barbecue. The smell of charring meat on the grill was enticing. The food almost done.
His wife, Sarah, played croquet on the lawn with her older brother and his wife and son.
—Food's...