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Just Another Homeless VetOnce I walked around
the Willow Grove mall maintaining a rapid pace the clock tower I wrote an article about chimed twelve times, knock knock you're dead The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Fight or FlightWords by Megan Collins Image by Gretchen Gales @GGalesQuailBell QuailBellMagazine.com *Editor's Note: Previously published in 3Elements When he was six, his mother had called him a “dumbass bastard” for trying to save that bird. She’d been smoking a cigarette in bare feet when she saw him pushing his toy truck towards their concrete steps. The bird, motionless on its yellow bed, looked wet and inside out, but Davey swore he saw—sometimes at least—the beat-up body breathing. Two decades later, however, handcuffed inside the interrogation room, Dave understood that the shaky rise and fall he’d seen that day might have come from his own desperate breath.
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Bad Daydream (Inorganic Blue Cheese)scared myself,
reflecting bathing in moon silence The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Split TrunkA severed union--
condemned partners creak skyward in mangled permanence above a split trunk. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Dream DateSarajane was eager to go out with the inscrutable man she’d met at The Golden Corral. At the salad bar, he jostled her, she dropped broccoli, they bent down simultaneously, and then the two bumped heads. Sparks ignited in her heart and nether regions.
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MensesI lived as an infant and became a child
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The Traits You TakeBy Emily Linstrom QuailBellMagazine.com Somewhere in your ancestral villa
lives a woman who slices persimmons like she was born to handle knives and babies and maybe she was once like us, The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
It is Like Eels, Thisif it isn’t eels, it’s something
else that gives me pause The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
The PorchI stood for a while on the porch
listening for the sound of a screen door slamming. I knew her eyes were teary and bloodshot, so I kept my distance The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
At a Baby ShowerThere the mom is, glowing, as the horrible cliché goes.
Cupcakes and people, smiling faces, but thank God no stupid party games where I must pretend to care. My first shower since I lost my baby-- All I can think about is how my stomach would be beginning to grow round by now. The thoughts are spurting out my ears, swirling round her body and stomach like bees swarming honey. My musings are almost angry, despite the inappropriateness. There was nothing I could do. I couldn't help my little bit, I'd be out of my first trimester, nearing the end of my nauseous phase, looking forward to knowing the sex, but instead, I’m watching a woman I barely know rub her belly, and I feel so empty, angry for being forced to be here for someone I work with, but don’t know or give a damn about her or her belly full of baby. My smile is artificial feeling on my face like the sweetener in the diet coke she sets there drinking even though we all know it’s bad for her baby. This woman talks of feeling lonely, but I’m alone. She can't be right now. She's always with child. She deserves this baby more than I would I didn't even want to be until I wasn't… She speaks of her excitement, of seeing her baby boy for the first time, and it now it’s hitting me: I won't ever get to meet my baby, see his or her face. No, instead I get to go home and drink fancy wine, but no three a.m. feedings. What the hell am I complaining about? No one wants those moments when the baby wakes you up for the fifth time and all you want is sleep, but instead you get vomit and shit in your once clean hair and wailing. Yet, a small part of me knows I feel different, knows why I didn't want to go, why I’m avoiding being near her, why I feel the need to hug her and comfort her before I leave. I don't hate her, I just know that I want to be her, not now, but maybe later, and until my body failed me, I never considered that the doctors and the medical books might be right, and that I will never be her. |