Humanity: Raw & Unfiltered
Layla tells us that she was down to 500 calories a day when she saw God. We’re all at Bri’s house, the four of us knee to knee and shivering because her mom turns off the heat at nine. The basement TV is paused in the middle of an episode Read more
Here, I bottle-feed an orphaned lamb for the farmer next door. Feel maternal at nine. I dodge spider webs in our garden while picking tomatoes to grind into Mom’s Sunday dinner sauce. I run beneath our neighbor’s trellises. The only girl. Play War with Donny and Danny among the vines. Read more
I. Breaking: Lanky Boys Throw Hands in Parking Lot Scuffle. Clichéd “fight!” chant chorused by hackneyed prepubescent boys eager for bloodied bread. Adults, bemused by scrawny- armed haymakers, sip nips in curbside seats. Lightweight belt withheld at bell; an even-match of puny sob stories determined. Tune in at ten for Read more
First Summer We have been in Canada about a month, and the constant feeling of shock somewhere deep in my tummy, is not abatting. I am just eight years old. I am lonely, bored, and my parents have a lot to do, so my mother takes me out to the Read more
I’m sorry I left you there waiting in suspended animation your crystal cradles safely ensconced (or so I pray) in stainless steel under blankets of liquid nitrogen 2 XY + 3 double-X I tallied your perfect chromosomes 46 times just to be sure We lost so many others before Day Read more
I had been to see Mom every Monday and Thursday for the last two years, since the day she arrived. Not that she would have noticed. My visits had become a comforting routine, predictable and unchanging. Each Monday I would stop at William’s Cafe at precisely 9 am and use Read more
I befriended a witch who detests mankind. ‘Men are rarely kind,’ Joy says often, and when she does, I resist the urge to tell her that mankind is just another word for human beings. She loathes corrections, and I don’t want to feel her wrath again. ‘The human race is Read more
his life is fleeting his spirit walking away cricket cries break through the veil of his eternal night each timid step he makes on brittle bones glued together with a poisonous elixir that drips and overflows pooling around his icicle grey eyes it strips away his beauty one strand of Read more