The stories and poems in this section may be most appropriate for young adult readers, but have something that can be enjoyed by everyone.
Inspired by Brenda Miller’s “Split” Here is what I know about my body: I live in a balled-up fist with mind and guts spilling out between the cracks of callused, experienced fingers, dripping onto wooden floors until I have been squeezed and wrung...
The moon surges and falls, plucksThe tide with velvet fingersFor eternity, and yet the flaxen sand twistsWithin its glass cage. The hourglassswells with corpses. The silkenviolin’s lullaby titillates, floodsThe feverish air. The devilish...
A helicopter took off on Mars, yesterday,and landed too–the important bit. Flightis the grey space, the distance betweentwo points, takeoff, landing, but it isn’t flightwithout those two bookends–it’s nothing,or a fall. Today, we walked Highland...
The trouble with being five years old is trying to get adults to listen to you. And the trouble with adults is that they don’t remember what it was like to be five years old. When you are angry or frustrated, they tell you that it’s because you are...
Every day I woke fearing the sea. Fear made my shoulders slump. It soured my mouth and released acid in my stomach. Seeing my pinched face across the breakfast table, mother’s eyes shone with tears. She reminded me, “Arlith, you were happy...
Another marble clacked over the rocks and disappeared over the edge. It was like putting a penny in one of those funnels at the mall, Rila thought to herself, that no matter how wide the journey, it always went to the same place. The ocean was only...
Reaching past burgundysignposts pointingeast to An-Nur Mosque Blue jays singfor black boyson vacation And the swelling of musicrattles their small and newbones, shrill azurite motifs Beckon like a wrenchwedged between a door to duskand a place...
1. The Invisible Butterfly Some lonely whisper half-caught in the morning light: earth does not support, yet all life is sustained… but it was only an echo. The music had vanished and left the air empty, as empty as Daisuke’s butterfly...
There it is, the bird of paradise with the neverending sword beak –
She swallowed hard and continued to hum to herself and try desperately not to panic. She hugged a cloth-wrapped bundle tightly to her chest. Everything hinged on what was about to happen.