It never speaks,
it barely breathes,
it never fades away,
It sucks you up, then spits you out,
leaving you behind.
It tugs at your heart,
then casts it out like trash.
it walks and talks with others,
but ignores you completely.
It cast it's line,
and pulled you in,
then threw you to the sharks,
you spun in it's orbit,
only to fly out and land on your face.
it left you for things,
pieces of paper and plastic.
it orbited your world once,
the left to spin through another.
that is the behavior of the void.
Arches atop tall pedestals opened into an ample space, magnified by groin vault ceilings. Red brick, scrubbed clean, gleamed brightly, reflecting morning rays.
Autumn, 1923
“Would, I be fine?” I inquire softly to Māmā and Bà Bà.
“Don’t worry, just believe in yourself and ignore nasty comments.” My Māmā’s tone was silky and kind-hearted. She patted me softly on the back and kiss my forehead lightly to reassure me for all the pressure I have.
As I entered Shāmiàn island primary school with my two brothers and sister, I glanced at my Māmā and Bà Bà once more, waving ceaseless at them. So many emotions emerged from my mind; frightened, happy, determined and shocked. Nine hours of school and nine hours, not seeing...
Bombs were the last thing on his mind. The first thing on his mind was an egg salad sandwich. Then bombs. He had exactly two things on his mind.
He was a very simple fellow, a bomb enthusiast who ate nothing but egg salad sandwiches. He didn't even have a proper name. Just He. Sometimes He answered to His or Him, depending on the tense.
There was a bomb in the bedroom and, being a bomb enthusiast, he was enthused by this. The only way to defuse the bomb was to eat the fuse. The fuse was not an egg...
Potatoes.
That's all the six year old girl would eat. And it seemed that no matter what else I tried to serve her, potatoes was it. She wouldn't try anything else. Wouldn't look at anything else. All she ever wanted? Potatoes.
"Honey, what are we supposed to do?" I sighed, sliding into bed that night. "We went out to the Olive Garden. And she asked for potatoes!"
My husband chuckled a little. "Well, look on the bright side: at least it's a vegetable she wants. Could be worse."
"This is bad enough! No protein! No grain! Heck, even sugar would...
There once was a man who live on Richmond street, he died a few years back. Took care of his elderly mother who used to shave her head and named her pet cat Winston Churchill, she had a few pet birds too. Anyway, the man was a Musician. He used to park his van down by this old run down building in the center of town and sit with the door open playing his guitar. He wasn't the greatest and he wasn't the worst, he just really enjoyed what he did. I forget his name but I haven't forgotten the...
What happens when life finally becomes too much to bear? He thought about it a great deal - but was unable to put hiself into those shoes. What happens when you feel death is more important than life? Or is that the wrong question to ask, he wondered. Perhaps the real question was: why had she decided that death on her own was preferable to life with him?
He had come home that day - an ordinary day like any other day - and been surprised not to find her in her usual place in the kitchen. Every time he...
When the father arrived home to his squalid, Lower East Side tenement building, he was exhausted. He paused at the door to pose for a Jacob Riis photo, and then trudged though the entryway. The grit of coal from the furnace in the oil refinery still covered his face. This, despite the fact that we worked on the docks hauling fish. His apartment was in the rear of the building: a cramped, filthy space overlooking a pile of rubbish that the realtor had described as a “quaint fixer-upper with a partial city view.” He approached the door, removed a rat...
"So, old woman, how do you cure Love at First Sight?"
The crone laughed like a deadman's rattle. "Ah, there's a thing. Well, if you were some maid, I'd say a kiss. Or to be truly rid of it, a marriage." She pronounced marriage 'marry-ahj' the old way of yore.
"Neither is possible. I'm already wed, and happily too, were it not for this accursed lust that's come over me."
"Tell me her name and her story." the wise one requested. Of course, she already knew the girl. The lovesick sow who'd pleaded for a love spell. Yet she listened...
In hindsight, the solution was obvious.
It was staring me right in the face the entire time but for some reason I had a hard time coming to terms with it.
It wasn't really his fault, in a way I guess you could say it was my fault. I was the one who always wanted to try new things and that night, he had been nowhere to be found. I jumped in with both feet, never once thinking about the consequences.
It was easy for me, I had no ties to anyone or anything. Well except for him.
He, on...