Every shelf, every drawer, every closet packed with precious trinkets and antique books and 50-year-old rulers, knitting needles, lace.
I find my father’s WW II dog tags, my mother’s middle school history notes. A box of radio tubes from before transistor radios.
Dense layers of things separating them from death.
Jennifer L Freed writes mostly poems, and sometimes very short stories. Find her at @jenniferfreed20 or jfreed.weebly.com.
I don’t think about you anymore.
Okay, sometimes in dreams. Okay, maybe for an hour or two after I wake up. Okay, maybe just before bed, just to make sure you’re not there when I close my eyes.
I don’t write about you either.
This is definitely the last time.
H. A. Piacentino is a writer based in Glasgow, Scotland. His work appears here and there. You can find him on Twitter at @h_a_piacentino.
He doesn’t take his eyes off his book.
I’m with an umbrella on a bench. I’ve been waiting for him to look at me; I don’t have time. They’re throwing the old statues away.
Whenever the stone boy finishes his book, tell him a stone girl was waiting for him.
Sunset wrote this story.
He sits on the park bench, remembering her.
Not long ago, she was by his side.
If you stare long enough, you can see the boy he used to be.
He smiles at me and I at him.
His, an unspoken invitation; mine, a polite offering.
I quicken my pace.
Deirdre Smith (B.A., B.Ed., M.Ed.) has dabbled in writing for as long as she can remember. She has recently started back to work as a teacher and Guidance Counsellor after a decade of being a stay-at-home mom to her three young children. She resides in St. John’s, Newfoundland.
I figure if I paint the walls clean enough and the color is neutral enough my landlord won’t mind. If he won’t let me out of my lease I need to change the four walls somehow. Her blush is still staining the wall she used to lean on while reading.
Sarah is a student at The New School where she is exercising her writing craft and preparing for a career in the field. She is constantly being inspired and reinspired by her life in New York City, and her protagonist origin story that brought her there.
The tinny melody finds our ears. “Ice cream!” we squeal through unfurling grins.
Granny supplies the funds. Drumstick for Chris, pushup for me. Licking eagerly, I inch the sherbet cylinder skyward, taunting fate.
Powerless, I watch its slow-motion topple. Despair, a creamy orange puddle, bleeds outward on the hot pavement.
Elizabeth Barton has been making stuff up for most of her life. A day job as a medical writer pays the bills, but her true passion is fiction. Her work has appeared in Gemini Magazine, Skirt!, and Prime Number Magazine, among other journals and anthologies. She loves cats, ice cream, Halloween, and Hungarian aggressive piglet jokes.
The small cross stood on a windy rise inches outside the cemetery fence. No baptism; no Christian burial. Just exclusion. My heart ached.
Spring rains softened rocky soil. The post gave way, nails twisted, boards slid.
I hammered the post in its new spot. Relief unfurled: my baby could rest.
Tawnia is an elementary teacher in Ontario who started writing a few years ago. You can find her on Twitter at @TawniaCourage. This story was written in memory of her grandmother.
She said she was okay. She said things were getting better. We laughed. We cried. Thank God for friendships that have no secrets; until she did.
She wasn’t okay and things were not better. She left our friendship, her family, her world. Another piece of my heart went to heaven.
Terri has published her first book, “Three Little Words to Look at Things Differently”. She lives in Bucks County, PA, with her “Hubbles” and their “Fat and Fabulous Calico – Gracie Girl”. She’s working on other writing projects so stay tuned!
They call it beach nourishment, dredge sand off the ocean floor, and push it through a pipeline to shore.
He lost a house in the hurricane that took the beach. That took his son. But the misplaced sand doesn’t make anything right. It’s nothing but bait for the next storm.
Jon Fain’s most recent publications are in Molecule, Star 82 Review, Scribes Micro Fiction, The Drabble, The Dribble Drabble Review, and The Twin Bill. Follow him on Twitter at @jonsfain.
Surprisingly, becoming a mother didn’t wait for my son’s birth. Mid-pregnancy I awoke with the thought that “I am a mother.” Shock, then awe as I realized my position within the universe had irrevocably changed for all eternity.
Forty years parenting, ten years grieving. Still a mother. Still his mother.
Eileen has four sons spread throughout the universe, with three still with her on Earth.