Tag Archives: pain

BOB THURBER: Easter Brunch at The Inn

Artistic, Submissions, , , , , , ,

For the Babies

—

Ten of us ate and ate, then ate some more. The bill was more than reasonable, considering the impeccable service, excellence and variety of food. The neat thing about dining at the inn was the nostalgic feeling of being at grandma’s house before the war. Stuffed, content, yawning with happiness.

Over the years Bob Thurber’s work has received a long list of awards and prizes. His most recent book is a collection of brief stories titled “Nothing But Trouble.” His first novel, “Paperboy: A Dysfunctional Novel,” was recently rereleased. Visit BobThurber.net.

Editor’s Note: Let’s all  hope and pray for peace, not only in our own homes but in those places on the news that can seem so far removed.

BOB THURBER: The Incurable Agnostic

Artistic, Submissions, , , ,

The hospice nurse used an eyedropper to slip more morphine beneath his tongue. The whole problem was God. God’s absence throughout. That summed it up. God at the beginning, pressing dimples into your chin. God at the end, sliding his hand over your eyelids, saying, Shush. That’s enough for now.

Over the years Bob Thurber’s work has received a long list of awards and prizes. His most recent book is a collection of brief stories titled “Nothing But Trouble.” His first novel, “Paperboy: A Dysfunctional Novel,” was recently rereleased. Visit BobThurber.net.

CANDACE KUBINEC: Phrenology

Artistic, Submissions, , ,

The charlatan claimed to be able to read the bumps and dents on my skull.

He massaged and prodded, poked and stroked, then told me I was kind and stubborn, and just a little too sensitive.

What would he tell me if he could read the scars on my heart?

Candace Kubinec wrote this story.

JOLETTA BELTON: The Path

Artistic, Submissions, ,

When the pain is there, the pain is all there is.

It’s hard to get out, to find the path, to find the way back to life, to living. We must ease into it, push back the darkness, find the light.

The path is there. It has always been there.

Joletta Belton blogs on chronic pain issues at MyCuppaJo.com, reads a lot, and loves adventure. She also loves staying at home in her PJs with her two favorite boys: her husband and their smashingly handsome dachshund, Buster.

SHERMIE RAYNE: The Key

Submissions, Touching, , , ,

The key gleamed in his calloused hand. Behind him, a childhood of broken promises and long struggles echoed the hallway.

Marcus held his breath and faced the door. Years of backbreaking construction for Uncle, and turning cheek to easy money, led to this defining moment: a place of his own.

Before embracing her affinity for writing, Shermie Rayne had an indelible love of words. She likes to use written words to ponder, push back against, or relish in the journey of life. Currently, Rayne is editing the first draft of her first completed manuscript, SKY, an upper middle-grade, epistolary-journal novel that follows a tender-hearted soul, a seventh-grade girl, Sky Jeffers, as she contemplates the challenging burden of living.

KACY CUNNINGHAM: Grass Stains

Poetry, Submissions, , ,

Go on now,
purse your lips
to the only addiction
you’ve ever had.
The ashes of what was;
better than our
last breakfast shared
in silence.

Let it rain and
ruin your white flag
while on grass-stained knees
I cry and beg
to gods who are either deaf or dead.

​From the Midwest, Kacy Cunningham currently lives in San Francisco, where she is an MFA student in fiction at SF State.

CHRIS GRIGLACK: Double Zero

Artistic, Submissions, , , , ,

She wasted her life watching her figure.  Slimming down and staying fit were her full time jobs, consuming her because she consumed nothing else.  Nothing but beautiful, empty as the calories she avoided.  A double zero personality in a double zero casket.  Smiling, for in death she only gets thinner.

Chris Griglack was born and raised in Massachusetts where he has lived for 24 years. He graduated from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth in 2012 with a degree in Writing, Rhetoric, and Communications.

ADDY EVENSON: Am I Pretty Now?

Artistic, Submissions, ,

Tonight, I’m perfumed. To you I am a shell. I am a template for beautiful paints. But I am bones, and ending, fast.

I thirst for touch beyond the surface. I want to break myself and show you my insides. Then I want to ask you, “Am I pretty now?”

Addy Evenson is a 21-year-old writer who writes magical realism, horror, and general fiction. Her fiction has appeared in literary magazines such as Prime Mincer, Bourbon Penn, and Curbside Splendor. She learns from libraries. She wanders the country, and writes to find home.

MADISON ROBBINS: Hands

Artistic, Submissions, , , , ,

His hands touched me in ways you are not imagining but in ways I cannot forget.

Those hands were the first to touch my tiny, ten-fingered, ten-toed body; the same hands that punched a hole in the bathroom mirror, leaving only his anger and his absence to remember him by.

Madison is a MFA graduate student studying Fiction at Chatham University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She spends her time writing, reading, and watching too many movies, if there is such a thing.

NIKITA GILL: Sweet Ache

Artistic, Submissions, ,

The sticky sweet pain burns through your insides like hot treacle. It sits heavy in your stomach like too rich chocolate cake, mountains of sugar rushing like adrenaline from the sheer gluttony of pain.

They insist that pain is leaden.

They’re wrong.

Pain is sweet enough to make you sick.

Nikita Gill is the editor of lit journal Modern Day Fairytales. She has also written an ebook called Your Body is an Ocean and has been featured in Monkeybicycle.net.