Posted by Published first on the Joy of It blog; The Window Seat, February 12, 2018. Smiling and giggling, the boy thrashes out of my hug like a lake trout; heedlessly springing over the circle of my arms like a robust gazelle calf to escape. It is a game, but truly he does not wish to be…Read more »
Posted by Prayer, a fatigued word. Draped with those wet blankets of ideas like feebleness, inaction and apathy. Prayer in 2017 brought a particularly tiresome reputation. Tragedy after tragedy, our overwhelming feeling of powerlessness rising, faithful and faithless alike knowing not where to turn but prayer alone. In response to the charge, I reflect that I’d pray…Read more »
Posted by Flip backward the calendars and replay the static-ey memories from sometime in the 80’s and 90’s. A collection of pictures, as in the kind we used to stack once developed from the entire roll of film; posed family portraits mixed among the random and mostly terrible action shots. The dated furniture and décor, strings of…Read more »
Posted by I claim the happy fortune of having spotted our townie hotdog hearse on two occasions. Someone has bolted a mastiff-sized fiberglass hotdog to the top of a hearse. The fiberglass hotdog is of quality construction. I’m convinced it is not simply an object procured by chance from some second-hand warehouse. It is shiny and new…Read more »
Posted by Something is strange about the way hurts in life corrupt me inside, later to unfurl in confusing and unexpected directions. My feelings wrap and jumble like poorly tended rope; a mess of buried ends and loops lacking purpose and order. A thread of bitterness with no discernible track or pattern to the casual glance. Picture…Read more »
Posted by Desert tender, you and I dwell in that parched scrubland of unspoken things, yielding broken things. Arid earth rends the clay into abrupt dry islands, irregular curved pucks of crumbling terra cotta, crags widening. There we dwell separate alongside the deep chasm. We are in a desolate spiritual place, a void of growth, movement, words.…Read more »
Posted by This Child, I say, we share a unique bond. My child, when I first enfold your tender body in my arms, I gaze with complete intrigue into your soft eyes and ask, “who are you, stranger from within myself!” So new that your breaths are still counted in number… you and I are sacredly wrapped…Read more »
Posted by Somebody insinuated I was racist once. I was livid. This is my story. I offer it; let it fall from my open hands. In that memory I am enraged. Anger, that surprising product of sadness and fear, like opposing fluids in a jar, whirl into a cloudy suspension. Sadness and fear whip together into a…Read more »
Posted by Within the time frame of a few weeks, my work friends decided to plan a party. Rather than have the party at the office, I invited everyone to come to my house. The week of the party, a coworker asked if they might also invite Melissa to come. She was not on the workplace email…Read more »
Posted by Years ago I was working in office with my co-worker “Melissa.” She and I were friends. Despite our friendship though, something went terribly wrong. I picked up a bad habit. You see, I had begun to arrive five minutes late to work, every day. She began to call me on it every time. Now, chronic…Read more »
