Shireen loved to look at her husband. His charming fluffy hair, that he slicked down for work but let free when going to see friends.  His warm beige skin that flushed more easily than her’s, even though she was only a few shades darker. His cheeks were reddened from the crisp October air but…

  The building did not allow dogs. The building did not allow cats. Nobody could ever really love a fish, and hamsters and mice and gerbils died too young. So Kasey asked her parents for a bird. “A bird?” said her father. “The damn thing would keep us awake squawking for sure.” “I’ll keep it…

  The sign at the entrance to the corn maze read “Thirteen and Up ONLY” but Tabby had always looked older than her age and had hurried past the doubtful looking ticket-taker before he could scrutinize her any further, dropping her tickets into the proffered bucket without looking back.  There was no way she was…

The way I look forward to their visits, you’d think they happen once a year rather than once a week. But today is Sunday, which means my darling son Robert is coming over with his two children, Annabelle and Mark, nine and seven. I never thought I wanted children—though don’t get me wrong, I loved…

One moment, I’m standing at the bar thinking of Brandon’s hand in my back pocket ordering us his go-to cheap beer. The next, I have two cheap beers in my hand and no one’s hand in my pocket. A wave of stress crashes, leaving me coughing up water while I hold onto my beer buoys….

Beads of sweat rolled down her face as she stood like a statue. Any movement or shift in her weight could mean the end. She fought the system and stigmas to end up with her foot over a land mine. She wanted to fight for her country, but she was going to die in a God-forsaken place…

  I sit here alone as I have done since they took my baby away. The chair is high-backed, plastic, and the cheap wood of its arms splinters under my nails. Beside the bed is a tatty locker, the door of which swings open: relentless, impotent, relentless, impotent, relent– A poor tribute to my daughter…

  “It wasn’t always like this, you know,” says Frank. We sit at a table against the window of the mostly empty Dugan’s Bar. He swigs his third Coors Lite. The uneven table wobbles as he rests his hand on it. “When Mom and Dad first moved us here, before you were born, this was…