When you wound a leather sofa
with the forbidden razor blade,
you see no cut but a blooming,
cotton pulp breaches skin, first peeps
and bursts out almost...
Stone and Scratcher
after a photo by Frank Cimatu
My human knows how to scratch
ecstasy and submission out of me,
rendering my retractable claws
cold as a wet...
We have our palms embedded in the trunks
of trees, embroidered in its leaves were desires
left seasoned by the worms. That the fruits were
products of...
“The past is not the past. The future doesn’t exist. It’s a made-up idea. Every mapping what we do of the future is a fabrication of our imagination.” – Patrick Somerville
Marielle Gaston—fourth square on the third of many rows of faces staring back...
For months following the death of his father, the boy did not sleep. Not a single wink for a single hour, every day, every week, every month for almost a year.
No doctor or hospital could help six-year-old Rico, and every time the doctors...
It was two p.m. on a weekday, and she was in the city, in leather shoes that pinched, a hot polyester acrylic blend blouse that was tight at the armpits, and dark pants. The pants were the only thing that fit her fine....
They were killing us softly it hurt so bad.
Softly, slowly, exceedingly painful. Think of an open wound left to rot under the sun. Dust and dirt, soil and sand blowing over, exacerbating, not reducing the pain.
The killers, with neither heart nor mercy, came early...
“Did you get it?” Tobi asked, though he already knew the answer just by the look on Jimwel’s face.
“Three baggies, one for each of us,” the younger boy said.“Your mother won’t notice?” Greg asked.
“I fudged the numbers on her records,” Jimwel said. “Even...
“It’s now or never,” said Marie, who’s in her mid-twenties, with a rugged face, vivacious and full of urgency. She took her friend’s right hand and almost dragged her out of the seat. But her friend Ana Dimalanta was less enthusiastic. Ana was...