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Life is a holiday from non-existence.
We are a universe machine. Tumbling atoms through space and time. We occupy so many things, but we scarcely remember. Touching stone and bark, cool water and hot flame, we experience a sensation that is sometimes as powerful as a memory. A gaze toward the heavens is like looking at a family tree in an infinite expanse all…
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Revelator Crotalis
I saw a young snake glideOut of the mottled shadeAnd hang, limp on a stone:A thin mouth, and a tongueStayed, in the still air. It turned; it drew away;Its shadow bent in half;It quickened and was gone I felt my slow blood warm.I longed to be that thing.The pure, sensuous form. And I may be,…
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Allegory In Yellow
The boy hadn’t slept in longer than he could remember. It’s not because he didn’t want to, he just…couldn’t. The nights were too full and too frightening. He had been enduring it for long enough at this point that he couldn’t remember what it was like for his head to hit the pillow and drift…
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The Ship of the Dead
The thirst, it was all that mattered at first. He was so thirsty. When you’re so thirsty that you feel as if you’re about to die if you can’t wet your tongue, that was how it felt to William. He couldn’t think of anything else, but after a time, he would be able to control…
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Quiescence.
Quiescence in tendrils of vine and trickling waters Surrender of the mind to heartbeats inhuman. Grasping for intangible strands of light produce empty hands And the spirit wanting to envelope the beauty, but nothing results but a memory. Frustrated mind in search of a harvest Longing deeply for satiation from that bounty. Fruits consumed through…
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The Groundskeeper and the Owl
It was a somber job to have, but Ernie King didn’t mind. He always preferred to be alone anyway. He always thought the nighttime was preferable anyhow to the daylight. These southern summers were brutal enough to melt steel. It felt that way anyway. So it was just fine with him to be doing his…
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The Kiss of Bonnie Rupp
Bonnie Rupp had lived hard. So hard that her name became Bonnie. She wasn’t born with that name, but it rapidly took hold on the American tongues that spoke it and that tasted her body to her disgust. Her Irish brogue and other people who had the same accent made you either a Paddy as…
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Le Chat Nick
The waning light of the day was making traveling any further nearly impossible. He had preached the Lord’s word and gospel to 4 different communities today, and fatigue was setting into the bones of Reverend Schuster. Many miles from home and a place to lay his head was beginning to be a thought that he…
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The Fate of Mary Wampman
As I sit down to write down these events, I am taken aback by the fear and the impending doom that permeates me to my very soul. I fear that it must be told, however, as injustice has become justice, and soon I fear that justice shall knock upon my door. Mary Wampman, Harvey’s meek…
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Origins
The torchlight was barely sufficient in this wind. He buckled against the torch as close as he dared, only trying to prevent being burned. He was desperately trying to shield the pekid glow of torchlight that rattled against the snow with the bulk of his body. The snow was driving sideways and it pelted the…
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Charmed
Lottie May vomited again. Her mother Rebecca and her Father Daniel held the hair out of her face for what seemed like the twentieth time this evening. They were exhausted, and they knew that their daughter was too. She hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in two weeks. They had Doctor Chandler out to the…
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Wind Chimes
Beads of sweat trickle down Emma’s face despite her attempts at trying to stay cool in this insufferable heat. 35 years of southern summers, and you never really do get used to it. The porch swing groans as she shifts her weight in to get both of her feet up into the swing to let…
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Summer Symphony
A blanket of heat settles over everything. The air thick like the cotton blossom under the sun. Cool breezes mean more to you when your shirt is soaked with sweat, A reprieve from the gods of nature and their high sun effigy. Nights are subtly lit with grace. Once from the stars between spontaneous rain…
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Old Time Religion
The tales told by the dead are not the stories the living tell their children. The dead speak tales of time and memory Those passed are still here, the memory of their footprints ever in the soil. Carbon converted to tree root and river. From whence we come, so shall we return they say. They…
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Yesterday’s Leftovers
We are yesterday’s leftovers. Born on this earth without having a say in the choice to be put here, we are brought to life screaming and innocent. We haven’t lived, and the marks on the world have yet to be left by our hands or left on our skin as reminders of what we have…
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Gods Versus Heathens
At war with an enemy we build, from our shadows, of dust, and creaky floors. Gods versus heathens, our hearts and our minds, are both lost inside open doors. In the scabbards we wear at our waists, these weapons we think that we own. Wielding hearts toward the battle, we stifle the rattle, of the…
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Shawny Bridge
As long as humans and bodies of water have existed within the same space as one another, bridges have been a natural response to their union. Needing to get to one side of the water from the other always becomes a challenge that must be confronted and surmounted, so inventing ways to achieve that goal…
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Kintsugi
A million blurry eyes crying themselves to sleep at night. Listlessly adrift in the dark, bobbing on waves unseen on our lives like rafts in the current. Landmarks out of sight, alone and floating. We all have heartbreak tearing at the sutures in our chests. We haphazardly stitch the wounds closed with whatever we can…
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The Ghost of Nostalgia
We try, constantly, to hold on to the things that permeate our minds as being better than the place that we currently are. I am sometimes haunted by nostalgia, the ghost in the corner of the room that we try fruitlessly to compare the current world around us to. It always seems to fall short,…
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Southern Hymnal
A low land among the hills is called a hollow. Those countless hollows (hollers) full of lightning bugs that illuminate in a way only be compared to the stars in a moonless sky, but they’re still very different. An iridescent green hue belonging only to the wings of those tiny lives fanning their own breeze…