Cliche in Contrast

Drifting- seeking- lost, forever. Her breath held still, shallow paradox, tears fall hot staining white satin and lace. He departs, the distance measured in light years. Ersatz affection given a bloom, a title, donned like armor, she sees only target. Once bruised and battered, she, never idle, clutching blade, white frosting knuckles. Extant wrath floods, …

Claudia

Claudia, the mail lady, with the crooked smile that suggests I am calling her by the wrong name. Hair in a ponytail, blue shirt, blue pants, black shoes. I see her almost every damn day. She walks a lot and it shows when she wears her short blue shorts. She walks fast and it shows …

China doll

She moves like I imagine angels in heaven move, like water, seeming to ignore the laws of nature. China doll face, soulless mess, a body you can almost taste with a simple touch, lost in the darkness of her own twisted mind. She moves through life the way she moves across the room, drawing eyes …

Cast Away

So hollow and alone, a shell washed up on a deserted beach. The waves pushing it farther from the embrace of the ocean, further from all this carapace has ever known. Once home to a life, now extinguished, never again the same. Time will wear it away, the sun bleaching colors until only fragments remain, …

Burying Ghosts

Ghosts do not stay underground, no matter how deep you bury them they always find a way to return, floating up through dirt and rock. They come back, make their presence known, their aggravation only made more plain by you trying to be free of them. Ghosts do not want to be forgotten and dirt …

“Boom”

…was what she said as I walked past       and began to laugh. I imagined a bomb somewhere       killing a family on their way       home from church. As she laughed, I wanted to shake her       and ask her       why. I knew she didn’t have an       answer. She was just a messenger,       so someone would know       their …

Birds in a bush

I see her land on the branch before I hear their cries. I watch as she dips her beak down their throats. She gave them life, in this nest, within a Juniper bush. She still gives life to them despite the sweltering heat. She battles that heat and the other birds and the people in …