All tagged literature
Three months after my 19th birthday, I was sent home from my freshman year of college for 2 weeks for some kind of virus going around. I spent those two weeks in blissful ignorance with my friends, waiting on an email with a return date from our colleges that would never come.
In addition to being a lovely person, my sister also possesses a great memory, meaning the slightest hint of something you might drop in discussion can turn up in a lovely gift at any time. Staring down at the gleaming rendition of Abe Lincoln I remembered how the last time we spoke I told her about how I was getting into coin collecting after reading an article about this one particular printing of penny that had just sold at an auction for an exorbitant price. This one didn’t have the defect that made that one so valuable, but it was rare nonetheless.
the patterns do not change __ __ __ __
they are misremembered __ __ __ __
cool hand __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
separate heat __ __ __ __ __ __
In Chicago again, but years after, from the airport with my bags all packed, clutching a small quilted pillow and a backpack, my passport and a ticket for Rome in my hand. Blow a kiss. Wave wildly. Say farewell. My grandmother with her butterscotch breath. With her Filipino kisses: her nose pressed to my cheek, one long sniff.
I put my pants on like everyone else: throwing my pants in the air mid-handstand the pastor preached to his congregation. Edward Fortyhands with the monkey’s paw the congregation preached back.
Sarah enters the castle. Carmen takes over and helps her get acclimated. Come to find out, she’s missing from the Center for Wayward Girls. Family died in a fire. A troubled kid bounced around in foster care homes.
What should I do? I know she met the judge. I mentioned him. She couldn’t stop shaking.
Be gentle don’t bump it I’ve got Andromeda centered
In the viewfinder but it will already have shifted slightly
Gliding its trillion stars and their moons in millimeters
Behind the local legends painted ancient on the dome
I arrive 15 minutes early because that is what the flier says to do. The address has brought me down an alleyway between a church and a nail salon. It’s dark and wet. A car pulls up and a man gets out. He is tall and has pecs that push through his t-shirt. He asks me if I’m here for the fitness class. I hold up the flier. He says his name is Derek and tells me to follow him.
but ask me again how much
I care about the other mouths
that could call my name.
My day began with a cup of coffee. A dash of caffeine was what I needed to kick start my day—a software engineer's job involved long hours of staring at the screen, making me susceptible to drowsiness. Lunch would comprise a sandwich filled with oodles of cheese, and dinner would be a burger, besides the alcohol at those local bars during happy hours.
We’d get home, and he’d go back to weaseling money out of Mom
and squandering it on things that were smokable or fit in a syringe,
on what wasn’t bread. The little money he made came from
selling our family’s things: Mom’s jewelry, TV and VCR
swallows actin’ drunk
swimmin’ overhead
chasin’ each other ‘round
like brand new lovers
stumblin’ out the bar at 2 am
I command subjects, turn math to English, history
to lunch, govern teachers and students alike in
my slow crawl through middle and high school
periods.
“Thank you all for being here to celebrate my lovely wife, Julie.” He smiled at her mother, then Bri and the rest of the gathered party. “I know your love for Shakespeare, dear, so I thought this would be something you’d enjoy.” With an overly-dramatic flourish of his hand, he sat on the loveseat with his wife.
We are all God’s little playthings. Or else why are we on a ball.
I had the goods,
the lowdown, the skinny,
the whole truth
and nothing but.
I was dangerously
in the know.
It's the portrayals of thinkers and writers like O’Brien, Nadine Gordimer, James Wood, and Edward Said, that further explain the purpose behind such a book, more so than Professor Boyers’ reflections on the title figures. Much of this memoir is set at various dinners, conferences, and symposiums where arguments are volleyed and feelings are hurt. The atmosphere is taut with argument.
But what about the fact that her father believed in nothing? No afterlife, no reincarnation, no heaven or hell. No God. Just dead emptiness. Could he be right? So, what was the purpose of life then? Just the here and now? Each moment. If there’s nothing, what about right and wrong?
On three, the boy next to us threw a Frisbee that wasn’t there. A second later, we let loose the real thing. Time slowed as we waited for a reaction. The man in charge of our European well-being cursed into the evening. Contact!
If you listen, really listen, their voices come back.
They start to tell you about places you’ve
never been, about things you want with
a ferocity that scares you sometimes. They make
sense. Sit with them on the couch and watch
a movie you know is bad.