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Spoon Licks
Bits of ground coffee lodged themselves in between what teeth were still sticking in his beet-red gums. The tip of a rollie hung gently from the top of his lip while he humbled, that is hummed and mumbled, some conjured-up words to nestle between the clankity clanking tings he made while the spoons hit themselves,…
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Flies Dance in the Floodlights
It had now become a ritual that after every break-up he would go for a walk in search of a baseball diamond. If there were bleachers there, he would sit and wait for a pickup softball game to begin and he’d watch it to completion. There were seldom others spectating at these low-stakes games, and…
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Sylvan
jam on wheat sticky tiny fingers checkered picnic blanket pale green marks collect upon knees ruined Sunday’s best wooded journey opens cool clearings comfort murky forests enclose the fallen oak a prone giant still ever resilient humid afternoons serve as the onions cut making angels to cry their fat tears pelt your soft head drip…
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Chlorine and Sea Spray
A four-star hotel had its foundation near where the Pacific laps the mainland with a ravenous host of frothy tongues. Two skinny hoods skated past on splintered boards with rusted bearings that squealed, hungry for replacement or grease whatever remedy would silence their pangs. Their hunger was osmosed through the feet of their riders. The…
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Outside the Ellison Duplex
The young men wore smirks of a mutual malice. Their expressions were either meant to ward off or attract simple-minded questions, depending on who may happen to be doing the asking. Questions like the kind that Hopscotch Joey had trotted up and asked last week as the little band of twenty-something tough guys stood outside…
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Cloth Doll Daughter Story Discussion
A slender woman standing in front of the chalkboard points her chin toward a boy seated in the second row of desks. “Go ahead.” “That’s not the way I see it,” he says, pulling his right arm down and crossing it across his chest on top of his left. “So,” Miss Marcy begins, “what do…
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Willow Creek
I remember when Stacy and I would go down to Willow Creek to skip rocks. I’d get mine all the way across; hers would only travel about half the way before descending out of view. “No one’ll ever try to skip that one again,” I’d say as the stone tucked itself in to the muddy…
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Pinball Wizards
We all had it in the back of our heads that this wasn’t all that good for us, but we also knew that if we didn’t do this here and now, we’d wake up one day thirty some odd years down the road and see a void where there should have been late-adolescent excitement. So…
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You Better Run
When you go for long runs, moments become monumental. After a while, you finally hit that temperature when the pores on the crown of your head open like infants’ eyes, oozing the byproduct of your stamping feet’s toil. Their opening is the moment you desire from the time you take your first stride. Hammering the…
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Stigmas, Silence, and Schooling
After almost nine years, I still cannot get a clear sense of what happened during the months that followed my high school graduation. The diagnosis that has become a descriptor of my identity fogs up the lenses of self-retrospection. Concepts like failure, accomplishment, becoming well-adjusted, figuring out the next steps in life, getting knocked down…
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The Pebble Drop
I am bipolar. Not like in the slang sense of the word. Not like just on bad days. Not like how people describe random eruptions of anger. Not like what you hear in that Katy Perry song. I have credentials. After I got my diagnosis, my father used to explain having a mental illness as…
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Tall with Long Legs
Tall with long legs. Long and smooth, running on for miles. Elegant and shear. She was dressing in a tee shirt, worn transparent with years. Skin showed through the fabric. When the lady spoke, her head lifted swiftly and he chin cut into the space where her floating words lingered. Her speech was confident. The…
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Recognizing Strangers
Today, on the shuttle that serves as the ankle on the last leg of my morning commute, the one that goes from the subway to the office, I saw this girl I know. She wasn’t on the shuttle bus. She was driving a small SUV next to it. My window seat pulled up next to…
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Man Oh Man(ia)
You’re updating your resume again. You have the urge to write down under accomplishments starting from A to Z: Alcoholic (recovering), bulimic (recovering), cutter (recovering), drug addict (recovering), etc. Or, you want to throw in there, “Has managed, with the help of doctors, chemicals, and family, to keep bipolar disorder from ruining life and the…
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Sophisticating the Rudimentary 