We have spent fourteen days in the new apartment. During the evenings, my mother stands at the kitchen counter and cuts packing tape with safety scissors. She empties boxes and begins cataloging her belongings according to their worth. She re-opens envelopes holding birthday cards, wedding invitations, notes of congratulation and bereavement, handwritten letters. Sometimes she’ll [...]
In class we read “Funeral Blues” by W.H. Auden. “Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun” reads the boy directly across from me. Then he looks up and asks, almost angrily, as though haven bitten into a rotten apple: “how can you dismantle the sun?” Some time ago I taped up a photograph of [...]
The paunch isn’t visible when she stands up in the tub and looks down, but it is when she turns a little to the left, towards the bathroom mirror. Her upper body feels heavy, not because of its actual weight but because of the weight of her gaze, examining all the crucial aspects of her [...]
He has tied the dog’s lead to the door handle of the Videorado. The dog, shimming up to the soda machine, keeps a colorblind eye on his master through the plexiglass. The room itself is unremarkable to the animal, who looks into the store with the sole purpose of safe guarding the boy. Watching over [...]
I love humans. It sounds off when I term it that way, a little too careless, a little too pseudo-cutesy, maybe a little disturbing. I can’t very well explain it, but I do. With them in my days, there’s so much magic. They themselves are not particularly exciting, but then again neither am I. We [...]
Dear body, Over the past twenty-four hours, I’ve tossed into you two cups of coffee, seven pieces of buttered bread, two bowls of kidney-bean chili, three baked potatoes, three cream-filled Swedish candies and four fat Vitamin C tablets. Stomach – I know you hate me for this grave misdemeanor. You have my heartfelt apologies. It’s [...]