No Poem Is the Only Poem. No Story Is the Only Story. Celebrating Diversity Since 2015
Mandy was seeing Jackson after work, so she’d be feasting on a lunch of cigarettes and Diet Coke. She’d already painted her toes bright pink and shaved everything the way he liked it. She just had to last another eighteen hours and then he’d be on his way back to Tampa and she could eat as many cheeseburgers as she wanted.
. When I was thirteen, I read "The Great Gatsby" for the first time. Even then, I had no interest in Nick or Daisy or Gatsby himself. I was so interested in the character of George Wilson who was “so dumb he doesn’t know he’s alive” that I named my cat after him.
Being dead was the easy part. That part made sense. It was living that was complicated.
I moved the dolls about the dollhouse, pushing them here and there. Tried to make them talk to each other. They remained mute objects. The passage from reality to playing pretend was shut. Forever.
If there is one theme I can’t escape writing about in everything I create it is how someone becomes themselves. What choices, circumstances, system, sorrow shaped them into who they are? And will they stay stuck or keep growing into themselves?
One hour to pack all that I own in five suitcases.
Their leather peels like sun-burned skin to the touch. I am
away from home and yet my clothes, my shoes,
my books, the items I carry for luck, the pictures
of people I love are all at my side...