my mother makes quilts

she gives them to people she loves

she works on them for hours on end

growing them, getting to know them, every stitch

she diligently picks patterns

matches solid colors that compliment the pattern on the opposite side

chooses a theme that suits the person who will receive it

watches true crime while she works

the dogs lay at her feet while she does so

her children we...

Sat in my dining room chair, you sat in yours, I watch you down the whole thing in what seems like two, maybe three gulps. Alcohol is a task for you- something to get done; finish. You never savor it.

Wiping tears from me eyes before they can reach the apples of my cheeks, I let a quivering, small smile stretch as far as it could across my flushed face. Admittedly, it didn't stretch very far. Th...

Scurrying across the road, I am repulsed by my instinct to scurry. My legs carry me in an automatic rhythm, away from my friend who lay on his side in the street. He's dead. Fish, I mean. You know when you... you can sort of tell. You can tell. The beast came swiftly and then was gone again. It changes forms each time. Sometimes it is big and the color of after-lunch sunshine. Sometimes it is qui...

balmy skin

foreign pillow

shirt twisting around and squeezing my throat

sheets are one too many days unwashed

body, crinkles and contorts

try finding peace on my back

my side

my belly

mattress pushes against me in protest

we fight through the night

waking in a pool of thick malaise

body is made of dry, old wicker

iron teeth lock together

creaking and groaning and sighing

i arise...

I hastily sat another bite upon my tongue. My mind, confused, searched. My tongue fell into emptiness like a foot searching for a stair in darkness. My jaw ground the rocks in my maw to gravel. I swallowed.

Nothing.

I was not sure whether my tongue or brain were betraying me. Sitting, still, I try to know whether taste ever existed at all; Whether anything ever tasted like anything. I attempte...