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The Moon-Bunny Author's Note: This story is inspired by a story that was posted on Reddit.com/r/LetsNotMeet, a thread dedicated to creepy stories. It was deleted shortly thereafter, and since I couldn't stop thinking about it since I had read it, I felt as though the Internet should be able to experience a story with a similar but original gist. For most of my life, my only mental image of the moon-bunny was off-white, slightly checkered skin. Moonlight revealed only its crown, also covered in fine, raised lines that formed the criss-cross patterns that I imagined to cover its whole body if shadows hadn’t concealed it. Two long, tendril-like ears on the sides of it’s head wafted gently with the torrents of air that poured through the opened window, also causing the skin sagging from its arms to drift alongside. The willowy, shadow-eclipsed silhouette remained poised in a mantis-like position, as though ready to escape as inconspicuously as it arrived.
Well, that’s what my parents claim, anyway. That’s how most of the crude, crayon portraits depicted of this creature that I called “the moon-bunny.” According to them, I started asking to sleep with them because a “scary bunny who came out of the sky and into my window.” After obliging me with an inspection (looking underneath my bed and out of my window), my mother dubbed my room monster-free and said that it was “probably just a friendly alien” and nothing to worry about. That’s right, folks: an adult told me that aliens were nothing to worry about, an assumption that would later be shattered by science fiction and horror films. Getting tired of accommodating my paranoia, my parents encouraged me to befriend the moon-bunny and even told me that it might show me its space ship if we became close enough. Soon thereafter, the moon-bunny shapeshifted from unwanted extraterrestrial presence to space bff in seconds flat. My parents often heard me “talking” to the moon-bunny at night, but didn’t want to disrupt my creative flow, as I was drawing and developing the talent that would come to color my future. Like a little stereotypical 3 year-old, I would ramble on about my nightly hang-out sessions with the moon-bunny. I claimed that I was right about the moon-bunny coming from the sky because “I saw her fly into my room.” (The moon-bunny must have revealed its gender identity at some point.) Thinking that I had just forged my first imaginary friendship, my parents told me to invite the moon-bunny to dinner, mostly just for kicks and to see what my imagination could do, probably to photograph or record it like they did for a living. The next morning, I reported directly to the table as my robe-clad parents drank coffee and read the newspaper. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Spill-O Fantasizes an Apocalypse Avoided One afternoon, God came back, armed with fire. He said He was a gardener, come to prune us away. Looking up from the waitresses’ asses, Spill-O saw Him coming. “Your destruction will only be the measure of Your neglect,” Spill-O said, consumed but not burned by the fire. “So mind Your reputation and get lost.” God paused. His countenance restrained the swarms of terrible angels. “The stamp of Your semblance is nearly too much for us to carry,” Spill-O said. “But like You, we are not completely mad. And You are only as redeemable as us.” God withdrew to his cosmic shyness. Remorse had been teaching Him slowly, since Noah. And it’s not done teaching. In the Long Island Sound, a sailor heard the thunder say Can’t live with them, can’t live without them. Spill-O exhaled and hoped that the waitress wouldn’t charge him for a refill on his diet soda. #Unreal #Poetry #ManVSGod #HumanNature #Equal #Fallible 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 Fog, Decay, Your Love The Fog Like the fog, the haze of your words promises more solid beginnings. But are the lights that shine through the haze of your narcotic eyes hope, or delusion? Decay On winter mornings, decay seems a far-off nightmare. The sun calls it out. But there are only a few hours till dusk. Your Love Your love is like the branch of a tree in Fall. It is forever reaching out to me. But is its agonizing spread too futile to return me to your arms? #Unreal #Poetry #Video #Imagery #Winter #Fog #Love #Relationships #Collaboration #Season 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.
Pillow Talks Something about the way it feels to curve my spine against your bony chest and breathe in your secondhand breaths reminds me of days spent like change And the silence hangs between us like crepe paper mourning, silky webs of unspoken secrets building walls brick by brick of emotional distance I dribble water down my chest and it looks like Tiffany diamonds or else dewy stars, like the ones you gave to her, mine, that day last year #Unreal #Poetry #Poem #PillowTalk #Lovers #Love #Relationships #FallingInLove 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.
My UtmostAuthor's Note: The protagonist of this story is intended to be autistic. Historical accuracy prevents it from being explicitly acknowledged within the text of the story but if there's one thing I've learned, it's that people will fight tooth and nail to avoid admitting a character is autistic unless it's made explicit. The grandfather clock down the hall chimed twice, then a third, upwards-inflected time, indicating 45 minutes past the hour. Jacinta Devlin had her pocket watch on the desk right in front of her but she always counted out the chimes anyway. They felt right. As long as she could hear them, the world was on schedule. Forty-five past eight meant it was time for Jacinta to make collections for Mr. Rosenzweig. She eased her topcoat off the back of the chair and pulled it on without buttoning it, putting on her dark gray felt snap-brim as she got up. Mr. Rosenzweig wasn’t sure about her wearing a suit, but Jacinta was insistent. The men who worked for him wore suits so it made no sense not to. Jacinta was 22 years old, plump and about 5 and a half feet tall, with red curls she kept a medium length. One of Mr. Rosenzweig’s associates, thinking he was being very generous indeed, once told her that if she lost some weight she’d be the spit of Ethel Clayton. Jacinta hadn’t been familiar with the idiom, to which the man explained, as if talking to a simpleton, that he meant she’d look like her, to which Jacinta asked why the hell she’d want to look like Ethel Clayton. “Well, because she’s a damn pretty one,” the man had said. Jacinta had shrugged. “So am I.” And that was the end of that. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
TRANSCONTAMERICA United we stumble, an angry man in a pink shirt in Group 3 who the gate agent restrains when he attacks women, two women, one old with a worn movie star sadness and palsy the other young, doughy looking, whose face I can’t remember because it doesn’t look like a face yet rather its dough and playdough and cookie batter and possibly—possibly—will become a woman when baked at high temperatures. Economy, non-stop flight 391 to San Francisco with gas stops in Minneapolis and, also, Denver for crying out loud. There was a thin crisp dusting of snow on the runway in Minneapolis, and the air was dry. Whatever the diner in terminal C of Newark says, they do not have the best home fries in the world. In Denver I thought of my sister, how we don’t know each other but are almost the same, are almost Tony with boobs, are almost making money. Almost the same. Except this plane is broken, why will you fly us in it? Except, there are divers in the fuel tank. Scuba the exotic fumes spilled in the Gulf. Except, we are already seven hours late. Except, please, please god, just make sense. Except, there are no exceptions no empty seats on other flights no other way no other way no way home for Christmas. When did I become the one waiting for the rest of the house to wake up? Old, old, old, and needing gas stops. #Unreal #Christmas #Travel #Airlines #Economy #HomeforChristmas #Poetry #Flying 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.
Show and Tell By Colleen Foster QuailBellMagazine.com Some untampered-with, tousled pre-9/11 version of herself whose internet still dialed sat criss-cross-applesauce on the oriental rug playing not with Barbies but with matches. Potentially an act of arson small enough for the dollhouse, but it stayed safely stashed in the upstairs attic shrouded in a black plastic bag. The useless wisps of smoke curled into the coveted hourglass shape that’s meaningless when you’re a single digit. When Mom(my) and Dad(dy) got home, the slacker babysitter would have no explanation for the ashy smudges, shoulders shrugging off the post-snack activity like graham cracker crumbs. No blood (to be absorbed like a secret), no foul (odor to be Secret-masked). For the meantime, all was left unadulterated. #Unreal #Childhood #Prepubescent #Nostalgia #Memories #WhenIWasAGirl #WayBackThen #ThrowBack #AsAKid 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.
Flawed Words by Michael Mark Image by Rachel Gierlach QuailBellMagazine.com Editor's Note: "Flawed" was previously published in Every Day Poets. Embrace this poem’s awkward verse. Its obvious structure and tame wording is unsatisfying. Accept this poem with its graceless line breaks and unsophisticated syntax as you would a child who is struggling. Hug close this poem, slowed by tired metaphors, as you’d hold a bewildered grandmother, nearly gone. And when there is no dramatic moment, no strength in meter and its current weakens, wanders, sit by it and patiently listen to its hollow voice. Praise it in its failing. It isn’t pretty enough. Like that girl You and your friends made fun of, Called names, threw stones at, Who married you and blessed you With forgiveness. This poem must be forgiven. It is not to be fixed. #Unreal #Poetry #PerfectImperfection #Art #Expectation #Forgiveness 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.
Buddhist in Scotts Bluff, Nebraska Karma put him here for the purpose of being blown away in a wind. The house he lives in, the way the grass in his yard grows and his vegetables struggle, each of his neighbors, all placed as if with tweezers. His patience is tested weekly, at the supermarket, watching these people fill every inch of their sweat suits and shopping carts with all that processed food. On the church lawns, the families hold signs, God Hates Faggots. He thinks about standing with them holding a sign, God Loves Everybody Equally. Maybe that’s why he’s in Scottsbluff, Nebraska, minus 6 degrees yesterday - to help him strengthen his practice of universal love and compassion. His Russian born wife, in her last year of residency, thinks about internal medicine, and the external generator that warms the truck’s engine block so it doesn’t crack from these extreme temperatures so it can get her to the hospital for 7 more months. Then they will drive the hell out of here, to Yuba City California, 64 degrees today, where she will join a family practice and he will have a Buddhist community, and they will trade in this truck for a convertible, and their hair will blow free. #Unreal #Poetry #Life #Marriage #Karma #Reality #Peace 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.
Toad's Fugue (after Paul Celan) Toad’s Fugue Sweat the milk in the morning whether you sleep whether you drink mine is yours in sleep Have a margarita and I will blitz your hair To fight in a grave in an error in the leakage of a spilled dance Sweat in the milk and drink it in the morning I will not be sleeping at home I will die in the night in a Dutch boat in an ear in an ear Night in the eyes All is beaming Sweat, milk, and morning We drink in the house Margaritas Mr. Spilled Milk Dead Toad Dead Toad Sleeping in a dagger in the lute in the tomb of broken dalias Sweat in the milk tonight with a toad Ditch the land of the morgue Is it loud? It drifts a bundle of kuegel pastries in the grave of thirty Mister Toads dying golden ducks dying asanas Shulamith! Diana Norma Szokolyai, co-director of the Cambridge Writers' Workshop (CWW) wrote this poem after Jessica Reidy's performance of the Paul Celan poem, "Todes Fugue" during the CWW's Yoga and Writing Retreat in Verderonne, 2013. Mis/translation is a creative writing invention exercise during which a poem is performed aloud in a "foreign" language that none of the participants can speak. The participants than provide a "mis/translation" of the performed poem based entirely on the feel and sound of the words. #Unreal #Poetry #Yoga #JuiceCleanse #CWW #PreThanksgiving #Translation #Baudelaire #Roma #Romani #Gypsy #Kaddish Visit our shop and subscribe. Sponsor us. Submit and become a contributor. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. |