Tried to take away your dignity Tried to take away your pride Now you’re dancing with the spirits Beneath a watercolor sky How far Did you walk that day How many Did you lose along the way The sky’s gone grey With winter’s frost Break the chains At all cost When the crows come We’ll load them down with stones Beneath the willow trees There’s nothing left but bones Broken boats Of clay and mud The current strong And red wi...

I am a monster. At least that’s what I’ve been told by the man who gave me life. Viktor. No, he is not my father. I have no father. Nor a mother. I was born in a laboratory during a storm, an amalgamation of body parts stolen from various graveyards. He told me that I should be grateful that he chose only the prettiest of corpses so that I would be beautiful and I guess I am. Beautiful, that is, or at least that’s what I’...

Getting up to the attic is a chore these days. Hell, some mornings just getting out of bed is a chore. Still on the right side of the lawn though, which is something. So full of history up here. The weight of it lies heavy on my shoulders at times. Featherlight at others. Dusty boxes labeled with memories line the walls. Lone bulb flickering, doing its best to keep the light going. I know how it feels. Grampy used to come...

Carousel spinning round and round Painted horses guard the killing ground Houdini’s ghost lends a helping hand Save your prayers for Superman Charcoal skies and hornet’s nests Soldiers dressed in their Sunday best Behind them plays a marching band Welcome to Cloud Cuckoo Land   Mirrors reflect a blood red sea The lion tamer sips his tea Ribbon dancers comes undone Burning under an electric sun Organ grinder plays a funera...

Stalingrad, December 25, 1942.Winter blankets everything, turning the landscape bizarrely beautiful. If you look carefully, you can make out shapes under the hoarfrost and snow. Burned out tanks and piles of brick and steel that were once buildings litter the frozen battlefield that was once home to over 400,000 Russian men, women, and children. Now the corpses outnumber the living. You can see them as well, frozen limbs...

“What did you learn from this?” My therapist talking. She thinks that there are lessons in everything. My answer? “Next time, cut vertically, not horizontally. Also, white wine goes much better with sleeping pills than red.” I’m planning on working this into a comedy routine. I think I have a future. I’m supposed to be writing about my feelings. I made the mistake of telling her I’m a writer. I didn’t mention that most of...

“I’m ready,” Lucy whispered, her voice so soft that it was nearly drowned out by the breeze kissing the grass in the great meadow where she (with her feet pointing west) and Alice (hers pointing east) lay cheek to cheek. “Oh?” Alice asked, her eyes drawn to a cloud that closely resembled a sailing ship. “You’re not paying attention, are you?” Lucy accused, turning her face away, gaze drifting towards the wood that surroun...

Red. Blue. Red. Blue. Like gemstones, in this case sapphireand ruby, the lights sparkled rhythmically in the rearview mirror. It was almost hypnotic, save for the fact that it was hardly calming. “Twinkle, twinkle, little star. Two girls sitting in a car. Down below the night so grim. Like angels poised and prim.” Lucy did her best to keep her hands from shaking as she maneuvered her royal blue Ranger over to the curb and...

His name was Robert. He’d just gotten out of prison on parole after doing 6 years time. While he’d been there he’d had his throat cut. He showed me the scar. Sometimes you just have a feel for when someone is scamming you. His story rang true. He was hanging out at a Chevron station on Saturday night because the shelter wouldn’t have a place from him until Monday. “I’m trying to do the adult thing, here,” he told me. “Try...

“Tell me a story, Lucy,” Alice murmured, staring skyward, watching the clouds form dragons or, possibly, cats. “And give it a happy ending this time, please.” Lucy shrugged and lay down her pen aside, deep in thought as she plucked blades of grass from the summer lawn and twirled them between thumb and forefinger. “Would you like to hear of Goldilocks and the three bears?” “Anything, as long as it doesn’t involve Rapunzel...

“You’re being melodramatic, as usual,” she mused, tracing a jagged line across the table top with the tip of her nail. “You’re not listening,” Lucy spat, tears flowing down her face, the onion on the cutting board forgotten as she plunged the knife’s tip into the counter. “I just want you to shut up and listen for once, and not go hide in your books like you always do. Would it kill you to let yourself feel something?” Su...

“I feel useless.” “You’re not.” “It doesn’t matter. That’s how I feel.” I wish I was a bicycle. Silly, I know, but think of it. Throw me in the back of the car and take me down to the shop and… “Twenty dollars, she’ll be good as new.” Liar. We tried that. Once you’re broken, no matter how much tinkering, you’re never quite right. The wheel wobbles just a bit. The brake rubs. The kickstand is loose. The tire has a slow lea...

I need to fall Scrape my knees Skin my palms Let me You need to learn to watch And we both know how hard it is When I keep falling over and over and… Smack Face down on the concrete Lip bloody and tears threatening Gritting my teeth as I get back up Again and again It’s called muscle memory Soon, I won’t have to think about it I will simply stand up Catch my breath Knowing I will fall again And again And... I will let you...

Frost coats the cherries, pulling them from swaying branches, clinging like sorrow. Just last spring soft pink petals fluttered like butterflies patterning the ground with poetry and prose. Hard to believe that, in my grandfather’s time, feminine shaped silhouettes of blood and ash marred the ground as the sky turned to blood above the cherished grove. Hard to believe that the deafening blast of atoms clashing could be dr...

Empirical audacity.Just a phrase, one she sketched in black, a blueprint for her meanderings; perhaps a puzzle piece to a much larger story, one that she’d yet to write. Black morphed to blue, then to red, sharply contrasting with the pale blue veins on her wrist. Sunlight snuck through the horizontal blinds, slicing her into segments as she swayed slowly, left to right, feet upon the kitchen stool until she couldn’t stan...