Time

People say, “Time heals all wounds.” My grandmother used to say it. My mom has said it to me. I’ve seen it on the internet, and I’ve heard it, once or twice, from friends. It’s such a common phrase that there are people who accept it as fact. I used to be one of them, … Continue reading Time →

Drowning

There are things which the body needs that it will strive for regardless of the risks. With strength born of a primal urge, it will pursue these things, even if the mind that governs it resists with what little strength it has. The body knows what it needs in order to survive, and when it … Continue reading Drowning →

Christa

Christa’s parents never returned home, and the police were never able to tell her, for certain, what had happened to them. They could only tell her three things: that it was her father’s blood, in the basement; that her mother had held the knife she had found on the kitchen floor; and that her parents … Continue reading Christa →

The Silence of Apathy

The Mask The Mask, Continued Christa knows that her parents don’t love her. She has known it for a very long time, and though she has grown accustomed to the idea, though she has accepted it as an unchanging fact about her life, she will never be comfortable with it. Like the lingering effects of … Continue reading The Silence of Apathy →

The Mask, Continued

After The Mask received some positive feedback, I decided to give it a continuation. Enjoy. She is dissatisfied. She has been for years, but previously, it has been a sort of comfortable dissatisfaction: unpleasant, yet familiar, and therefore less uncomfortable than perhaps it should have been. Her life up to this point has been bland and flavorless. … Continue reading The Mask, Continued →

You Don’t Love Me

“You don’t love me.” She sits on a padded dining chair that she has brought to the living room from the kitchen. Her arms are folded over her breasts. Her left foot bobs in the air, her legs crossed in the form she has perfected over the years to look at once the most elegant … Continue reading You Don’t Love Me →

Fractured

There is a girl in his life. He believes that he loves her. Or rather, he believes that he could love her, if only he could be a bit more sure of her. She lives on the other side of a wall of imperfect glass. It is clear, but in the way of a crystalline … Continue reading Fractured →

Mother’s Memories

My mother has memories of my life which I do not possess. To some extent, this is normal. Most people don’t form memories of their births, or of their very earliest days and years of their lives. A few claim to recall moments from before they learned to walk, but this tends to be little … Continue reading Mother’s Memories →

Pressure

“Focus. You can do it.” The course lay before him, illuminated brighter and whiter than day by the spotlights surrounding it. He could barely see the audience, though light fell upon them, too, since the cameras filmed them when the runners weren’t in action. All he could see was the course, and that should have … Continue reading Pressure →

An Entry from Birch’s Journal

I wrote this as a sort of exploration of a character from a longer work, "Letters." I've posted some excerpts from it on this blog: An Excerpt from Letters, or “After Her”; A Second Excerpt from “Letters”; “Letters,” A Third Excerpt. I'm not sure if this is strictly canon, but it's something close. I met … Continue reading An Entry from Birch’s Journal →