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Signals By Jody Rathgeb QuailBellMagazine.com Before I can see him, I hear him, over at the deli counter hassling Sherry: “That’s a wimpy slice. I want a dude slice, you hear?”
I pretend to get more register tape at the empty lane beside me, to get a look. Typical island tourist: baseball cap, bright print shirt, baggy shorts, hairy calves, flip-flops. Back at my station I give LaKida the signal: an airplane, elbows down. Checkers aren’t allowed to talk to each other unless it’s store-related. Mr. Collins is always watching. This sign, which started out as American Airlines, became a customer type: American asshole. LaKida laughs but hides it quickly, since she’s in the middle of an order for Big-Ass Queen Bee, a local girl who used to work here but married up and won’t let us forget it. LaKida manages, though, to put her hand above her eyebrow, signaling me to watch him. I’m at Express at a down time, so that’s not too hard. I see him tossing steaks into his cart, so I tell LaKida with a big imaginary bite, which I turn into a smile for the customer who suddenly appears. Then the dude’s coming down the aisle straight toward me. As he rounds the corner, I check the finger and give LaKida our “not married” signal. Then he’s out of my sight. And probably not coming my way, since I’m Express. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Why I Write Editor's Note: This piece was the winning submission in our challenge set by Prose: I write. I write because it makes me feel alive. I write because I morph into my character. I hate it when I have to kill my favorite characters. I love it when characters I hate get into a sticky situation. I write because there's something scary about looking down at a blank page. What will I write? Will it work out? So I bring on the pen. I write because I enter the golden gates of writing, instead of escaping the real world. I snatch bits of Real World here and there throughout my stories, making them more real to me. I write because, if I don't have the power of words, I don't really have a power at all. #Unreal #Poetry #WritingChallenge # Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
the day before we parted By Archita Mittra QuailBellMagazine.com the day before we parted was the day we sat facing each other on the icy floor holding a rose pretending we have a f-forever between us. the day before we parted was the day i woke up in an empty icy room un-alone, because you were all over, inside me and everywhere else like i was the core of your rose. the day before we parted was the day before it all fell apart, like the withered red rose we threw out into the gutters the day before we parted. #Unreal #FellApart #Departure #LastCall #LastTime #SayingGoodbye #Poetry #Poem Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
The White Door Papier-mache hides my true eyes when I sleep; bones I wear for safety on the outside, brittle from the sun, and hunger is who I am under a black lacquered moon. In the mute mirror I frame every memory so I can see them tomorrow and in the goss- amer of yesterday, petals of fate pinned to my eyelids, my spine stitched to shadow’s edge. To breathe, I stole the amaryllis’s light, made up my face with the powdered wings of a lost seraphim, yet hidden in the snow was a white door with no way in. #Unreal #Poetry #Photography #Imagery #Religion #Spiritual Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Remembering Things As They Are Happening: Winter Blues #32 I remember that winter when my hand was wide enough to cover your whole small boy chest. When we finished that first chapter book. When every note your daddy strummed left-handed that night was healing the frozen air around us. It’s getting down to 10 degrees in Virginia tonight. Hold on tight. #Unreal #Poetry #Photography #Winter #Past #Memory Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Worn By Lindsey Grudnicki QuailBellMagazine.com If I had any gift for prophecy, I probably would have seen in the tragic ruins of tea leaves, or the scattered stones and sticks on the garden path out back, that the threads binding us were as worn and thin as those on your grandfather’s sweater, which you still wear on cold evenings when you go outside to smoke. The threads were not suddenly cut by the scissors of the Fates, or snapped in a violent tear in a moment of rage. No, they were made brittle by years of wear, on bodies, on nerves, on heartstrings. I might have divined the break, the bursting of the stitches, but the softness and comfort blinds us, so-- like that aged sweater—we wear each other out, until the very fibers shatter. #Unreal #Poetry #Poem #Prophecy #TeaLeaves #Fates #Future #Divine #Destiny #OldSweater Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Signs I delve into great mysteries I live in countless histories What you think you see is fake For your eyes have yet to awake Signs pervade my life and mind And I write the signs to pay back in kind For I feel that I owe it to the signs To draw their figures, scripts and lines The signs are always speaking to me Their otherly words both chain me and free me I am forever bound to their work And I receive their secrets that in shadows lurk They’re written everywhere, signed in words Words not understood, words not heard For most do not speak the signs’ language Their language is strange, they cannot change it But I hear their voices, I see their form It is from both light and shadow that they were born They protect me from all suffering and pain But while they give me this, it’s also me they chain I respect the signs, yes, I love them And I never consider myself above them For they know strange things from the stars They can remove and inflict the entrapment of bars They give some of their knowledge to my own brain For they know that I will not go insane When I see all to come, and all that has been When I see all who will see, and all who have seen So the signs and I, we live in peace They share their wisdom, I shall not cease To work their magic, shrouded in secret As for their mystery, I shall keep it #Unreal #Poetry #Poem #Nostalgic #Reincarnation #Souls #Peace #Wisdom #Rhymes #Rhyming Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
To My Dark Lady Heaven is a place on earth, Your pubic hair its angels dark, Hell beckons from under your skirt, Your luscious mouth is my amusement park. Lice patrol your pearly gates, To your warm interior, I take the 1 Train, With your lips, forever my passion sate, You’re more proficient than the whores on Gropecunt Lane. I could write a poem to your arse, Of all of you the most exciting part, It makes Ann Coulter’s cooch a thorough farce, Baby, you enchant me when you fart. Nights I enter Heaven’s sticky soil, You fall asleep as I toil. #Unreal #Poetry #Sex #Imagery Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Quail Words by Cynthia Abdallah Image by Christine Stoddard QuailBellMagazine.com Where wooden rafters hold rooftops rest their feeble weight invisible webs trap unsuspecting insects chewing on dust darkness sifts the secret murmurs of prayers. #Unreal #Poetry #Nature #Imagery #Airy #Birds #Bird #BirdFeet Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
When You Look Into My Eyes Words by Adreyo Sen QuailBellMagazine.com Romeo: When you look into my eyes, I want to fart my brains out and die, your cheeks are juicier than Angus steak, your laughter is the sound of a Kit Kat break. I cannot but look at your thighs, heavier than a whore’s half-sated sigh, your words are sweeter than Cherry Coke, in your stale cheese aroma I soak. Pizzas are inspired by your lips, an army could be fed by your hips, your breasts are giant feta cheese lumps, you clog the toilet when you take a dump. Juliet: So when you look into my eyes, I want to have a toilet nearby, For I’ll jump on you and chew you up, anything to make you shut the fuck up. #Unreal #Poetry #Photography #Satire #Humor #Relationships #Cheesy #Shakespeare Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. |