Tag: death

Close to Home

Myra Slotnick

Today is a good day to die. The neighbor’s mother is dying next door, fifty feet from us. She has been dying for some days. The son arrived yesterday, though, from Ohio, all red-eyed, sleep deprived, and unshaven, and I happened to be collecting the mail. “Hi, how are you?” I Read more

Myra Slotnick

Myra Slotnick is a queer playwright and activist living in Provincetown, Massachusetts. When Covid struck she became eager to explore other genres, culminating in a collection of stories, and several essays.

Death’s Mementos

Whitney Walters

Mom woke me up late one night by rubbing my shoulder and whispering: “Whit, get up. There’s a full moon. Come into the living room.” She and Dad had quietly pulled the box holding my telescope out from under my bed and set it up. I had become interested in Read more

Whitney Walters

Whitney (Walters) Jacobson is an assistant professor at the University of Minnesota Duluth and an assistant editor of Split Rock Review. Her poetry, creative nonfiction, and reviews have been published in Assay, Likely Red Press, Up North Lit, Wanderlust-Journal, and The Thunderbird Review, among other publications.

Beyond The Ether

Jacqueline Cioffa

You do not have to be here now all day, everyday Searching for cosmic signs, all that guru bullshit You don’t have to be perfectly good all day, everyday Life is exhausting and overwhelming It’s okay and welcome to check out once in a while Give yourself permission to eat Read more

Jacqueline Cioffa

A retired, international model, and celebrity makeup artist. Co-Author of Model Citi Zen, the guide. Founder of http://modelcitizenmakeup.blogspot.com/. Author of numerous prose pieces in various literary magazines. Most recently published in Little Episodes Brainstorms the anthology, among esteemed artists Sadie Frost, Melvin Burgess and Todd Swift.

Putting the Fun in My Funeral

Dave Pasquel

However awkward, my wife Allison holds both the lunacy and the skillset to break laws of etiquette – especially when it comes to putting the fun in funeral. Of course, she initially offers up genuine, heartfelt sympathy at the appropriate time and displays rarely-seen seriousness during solemn moments. However, when Read more

GRIEVING

Susan P. Blevins

Ghosts of past deaths crowd my consciousness as I face yet another loss, a slipping away of another friend and brother. Each time we face the penumbra of dying, surreal ghosts rise up to remind us of other moments, déjà vu’s, other losses we’ve already endured. Each death rolls into Read more

Susan P. Blevins

Susan P. Blevins was born in England, and escaped at age twenty on her life quest, moving first to Italy for 26 years, and then to the USA, where she now lives. The older she gets, the more passionately involved she becomes in the world, and the more she wants to make a personal contribution. She believes that we can all make a difference, one hug, and one smile at a time.

Not Your Daughter

Paakhi Bhatnagar

my father never saw me smoke he didn’t see the way the clouds come out of my mouth and make beautiful shapes in the sultry sky between me and Her. I have never liked the way a cigarette felt between my two fingers but the sight of it between Her Read more

Paakhi Bhatnagar

Paakhi Bhatnagar is a student from India and an avid reader of historical fiction. She is a passionate feminist and blogs about current politics and feminist issues. She also possess the uncanny ability of turning everything into a debate.

Aleppo at Christmas 2016

Merima Trako

The age of miracles pretending to be this wonderful illusion wanting to see our hearts depths and story lines wanting to leave the eyes and trips stuck in our throats wanting to achieve endless motion, desire to believe in our human sacrifice wanting a reprieve from monsters hiding wanting to Read more

Merima Trako

Merima was born and raised in Bosnia-Herzegovina (former Yugoslavia). Sudden nationalistic divide in the early nineties, leads to a bloody war where a three percent of Bosnian population (mainly Muslims) is killed. Merima and her family escape ethnic cleansing in Banja Luka (where she was born) and settle in Travnik. Her story continues with her move to the USA to study engineering and mathematics, her “other love”, where she lives now. She is a mother, a refugee, an engineer and a woman passionate about creating literary awareness about world issues, social injustices and her life experiences, consisting of complex topics, from religion to non-spiritual events. Her work is available for readers on her website www.worldaccordingtoblam.com. Most recently she published two short stories and two poems in the collection of prose and poetry of the No Name Writing Group from Washington Depot, CT in their anthology titled “This One Has No Name”.

Algorithms Of The Heart

Julie Anderson

I have a healthy heart; it beats it pumps it has yet to let me down. I know that I am fortunate because of this. But then my heart broke. And it stopped beating its traditional tattoo; it grew wings, the tips flapping hard, trying to burst through the cavity Read more

Julie Anderson

Julie Anderson is the Creator and Publisher of Feminine Collective. Julie was inspired to create this safe place for women to share their secrets, desires, triumphs and pain as the antithesis of what mainstream media offers women today. In her column Pursuit of Perfection, she explores the importance of rectifying the balance of inner and outer beauty through essays, poems and articles on self-esteem, shame, family, and self- acceptance.