Hang in There

“Hang in there”, they said.But he wasn’t hanging at all, his fingers were building a home for himself.He was climbing. If he seemed to them to be hanging, how can we tell them that it’s because he liked to live on the edge?He liked to be right where he was, in mid air.He depended onContinue reading “Hang in There”

The Best Breadcrumbs

“Tell me about your dreams”, his mother says.  She slices through a cool cucumber that seemed to have lost all its juice. He wants to say that he won’t eat this powdery mildew; that she will one day end up with a fungal disease if she lets her vegetables sit around the bottom drawer allContinue reading “The Best Breadcrumbs”

Corduroy

A story about an 11 year old boy’s small thoughts spurred by the feeling of corduroy fabric on his skin. A feeling that kept strangely and interestingly coming back in the form of memories and dreams at the age of twenty, the almost-age of fifty and his final year of nintey-two. A story that remainedContinue reading “Corduroy”

An Insomniac’s Morning Hours

When the call to prayer soundsand the sun’s about to rise,my thoughts restlessly dissectthis sorrow, that guilt, old lies. “I can’t keep up”, I say,“slow down and stop the mumbling!”But they answer with obtuse eloquence,lingering, rolling, and tumbling. How lucky I find those people,who are right now asleep.Their heartbeats slow and steady,their dreaming calm andContinue reading “An Insomniac’s Morning Hours”

We Know So Much. We Don’t Know

We need each other differently than we ever served each other before.  Everything has become instantaneous, from analog to digital. Some suppose it is necessary and productive, others presume it is robotic and destructive, and those who have no opinion form one by reading and listening to the opinions of others. We know so muchContinue reading “We Know So Much. We Don’t Know”

Made up of Halves, Trapped in a Whole

A Half-Skeptical Take on Things (Two girls, ladies, young adults, perhaps women – who can tell nowadays? – sitting for lunch in a happening restaurant. They are discussing the instagram stories flashing across a phone screen on the center of the table as they eat.) A: “It used to be all about the perfect liquidContinue reading “Made up of Halves, Trapped in a Whole”

Marigolden

I felt like home among the golden glint of the Marigold flowers coddled under the belly of the sun.Miles away from home, an electric jolt of adrenaline nudged my heart so that my whole chest heaved when I breathed in.I felt like water. Or more like snow; wrong for a girl raised by a rockyContinue reading “Marigolden”

Record the Optimist’s Testimony

Those optimists, who see the good in everything, they often have to tread on the trail of their upbeat conviction alone. We have a general idea that bitter and negative people are the lonely ones, who are in need of the most help, compassion, coaxing and attention. On the contrary, it takes much more nerveContinue reading “Record the Optimist’s Testimony”

It’s Not So Ordinary

It is not so ordinary, she thinks, weighing the ingredients for her daily dose of consolation. Falling asleep by a dim living room lamplight at 22.30, switching it off at 2.00, dragging my feet to my bedroom, ever so sluggishly, so that the demon breathing a heavy milky breath behind my ribs doesn’t wake. That’sContinue reading “It’s Not So Ordinary”