Prodigal: Frost, Kafka, and the Enterprise of Family

“Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” – Robert Frost, “The Death of the Hired Man”

Superposition: Clifton, Smith, and the Coexistence of Loss

“You were you, but now and then you’d change.” -Tracy K. Smith, “Field Guide”   My first reading of Lucille Clifton’s “Dialysis” is a memory cemented in my mind, as though a lighthouse keeping me from running aground. The waves grew more turbulent, and I imagined listless whispers repeating “[I]f our dead were here, they […]

Other Mental States Exist

I looked at the half-gone cigarette in my hand. I became aware of a ticking and a glass table in front of me, covered in smoked cigarettes. I recognized the table, of course, and knew where I was. I answered questions.

The Story of How It Happened (or, The Rag-and-bone Collector of Hard Obsidian Problems)

A room had two wooden doors and a window. A large mirror, an unused bed, and an empty bowl occupied it. You occupied it as well. I am telling you this because this is how it happened. At the head of the bed rested a dream you wrote down and tried to remember. A dream […]

Dooom (Second Draft)

The scene opens in a dark park between streets unseen. At first there is the sound of a swing swinging back and forth; the sound   of chain scraping against chain. The wind blows and with it comes the sound of low and heavy drums. Elsewhere, the stage has been set   up with a […]

Sophias, of a Hidden Plane

Sophia I Every single time she smoked. Sophia II The woman she used to be was long gone. Sophia III, Dreaming She dreamt she descended steps through hail. Snowing, not knowing where she was going. Sophia IV, Wandering a Plane Where she wandered, along a walkway through Weinland Park, she found a flyer folded and […]

Your Former Self and Other Odd Occurrences (Second Draft)

Your former self used to go deep into wooded areas to find the things and places people and time had forgotten.   The Johnsons touched often, now touch little, will touch less. The Smiths touched often, still touch often, will touch often. They are touching now.   When you found the forgotten places it would […]

The Allure of Pseudoscience

(via Berfrois) // By Sebastian Normandin. The persistence and proliferation of pseudoscientific thinking in contemporary culture demands explanation. Clearly there are some pragmatic reasons for its expanded existence, and people will often trot these out when discussing the topic. For one, there is the lack of basic science education, leading to gullibility and a lack […]

After the Future

(via Tricycle Magazine) // By Kurt Spellmeyer. “He won’t come back as a fox next time but he will still come back. Everybody does, forever.” Continue reading at Tricycle Magazine.