“Rock, scissors, paper, shoot!” His tiny hand forms a fist which I tenderly enclose within my own, wishing as I do that I’ll never have to let it go.
“Rock, scissors, paper, shoot!” His tiny hand forms a fist which I tenderly enclose within my own, wishing as I do that I’ll never have to let it go.
I race towards home, holding up the watercolour I painted at school.
When we get to the waiting room, our lucky seats are taken. We end up beside a talker.
Everyone remembers the first time they heard a man beg. “Let go,” he said.
A burnt orange glow reflected on our cheeks, the fire warming air more accustomed to the winter chill.
The wet snow in the woods forces me to run on the road this morning.
That dang pickup is still there, has been since I left work. Lane-changing when I lane-change, that’s how I know he’s tailing me.
He says it never happened. The airport, his arms dangling me over the railing.
They think it's the paint. They think I'm crazy.
I saw a couple heatedly arguing at the edge of the road in front of a tucked-away apartment complex, and then he pushed her into the road and moved back towards her.
After stumbling across the gangway at Frankfurt during a layover, I’m suddenly in a heart-racing haze at security, an officer observing my disoriented self, swabbing my belongings for “substances.”
Mom was in the ICU for three weeks. The doctor suggested moving her to hospice.
Spiralling, up, up, my anxiety levels. Sweat, hot, dances down my back.
The heavy bass resonates in the bathroom, the vocals barely audible over the running water.
“Twix can be a little difficult to handle at times, but you will do just fine. You are our little star, after all,” he said, fumbling with the bridle, the stale odor of alcohol on his breath.
A boy dressed as a robot is sitting next to a fairy.
A baby’s crying woke me up at midnight.
The black and white photo is loosely tucked into an old photo album of my late aunt.
The floor thrusts towards the ceiling. Walls splinter and pieces of plaster crumble around us.
To feel safe, I lock myself into bathrooms.