At first I barely felt the bullet pierce the low-slung cocktail dress and enter my heart. It seemed impossible to consider death real, despite the warning minutes earlier from the mysterious lady with the black eye shadow alongside me. I always thought I'...
Eden. The word doesn’t need adornment, it just evokes the image of paradise. Except, it doesn’t in my case. Though not by any means hell, my Eden wasn’t the paradise you should find yourself praying for. For you see, my Eden was, and maybe always will be,...
July’s midsummer heat stuck. It stuck to the blades of grass. It stuck to Sumire’s beige romper. It stuck to everything and anything like a sweltering bog. Sweat drenched her underarms as she set up her easel and foldable chair. Even at her elevated vanta...
Rita sees them coming, moving carefully through the Friday crowd. She waits till they reach their spot, then kills the booming juke. "Clear the floor!" she commands, quelling the protests with a glare till the two are standing alone. She punches up their...
On weekends I used to go into townto shoot in black and white.People strolling, kids running free,dogs or cars or any funny thing.The woman with the camera. Now I just shoot ghosts alongthe plague scoured streetsand empty parking lots,lucky for a distant...
An hour each Wednesday is our time of loveafter I check the stations along the forest creek.We meet where beavers made a little pooland sweet grass covers the sloping bankcanopied by sycamores dancing in the breeze. We met by chance when I spotted herat t...
Some say only ducks truly enjoy the rain. They obviously have not met Kerstin. “You’re stark-raving mad, you know that?” I call out to her from the bungalow’s front porch. “We haven’t seen the sun for three days. These puddles may very well be my only c...
"Are you there, my dear Eloise?" she called out to the shadows. She waited in still silence, hanging on hope. Her pulse grew as the wind picked up, rattling the windows. She spun around, searching for a figure in the darkness. Wood creaked underneath her...
I was annoyed… At first… Then I was amused. - - - I have lived in Midtown Manhattan for most of my adult life and Eugenia’s Creations just off Herald Square is my favorite boutique. I am a curvy girl and Eugenia designs specifically for ladies with a figu...
She was the product of four different diasporas - Armenian, French, Greek and Scottish - and this showed in her features; her face was long and thin, with freckles spread across it like stars on a cloudless night, her nose was large and beak-like and her...
I hold my cards close to my chestNever letting anyone inI don’t show my true coloursInstead keeping my thoughts to myselfWhy would I do this, you askBecause the world is so cruelNarrow-minded fools are in chargeAnd refuse to understand meI am deeply in lo...
Cerise rode home quietly that night, and Mike glanced at her. "You OK?" "Yeah. Tired," Cerise replied, and looked forward. It had been an odd night. Some of the customers had come on a little strong, and so had the singer. Yet at the same time, Cerise had...
Cerise Adams stood in front of the worn mirror that was leaning against the wall of her room, staring at the clothes that she wore. It was a pair of black shorts and a bright red tee shirt that boasted the name of her uncle's bar in Portland, and it was h...
You’ll play these maidens for fools, Dancer dear, Cropped hair atomic pink, steel stud shining In your bottom lip, a bank your tongue overflows When you giggle. Look at you: baby blue UFO pants, rainbow Piping, your silly little bump and grinding; Kandi-c...
I thought they buried you in the snowLast winter-- but, pray, was that me?Curious, how I’ve nowhere to go,But pace the graves at half past three:Mysterious ‘tis, where goes my mindThese bleary days since I spied you last;It seems I’m cloistered from my ki...
