I looked at the two bassinets. Both babies were either sleeping or didn’t like the bright lights of the nursery; it was impossible to tell the difference. “You know, in about fifty percent of the world, we’d already be talking about marrying our children off to each other.”
I reasoned with myself: just because Brandon wasn’t taking afternoon French, Chinese, Arabic – any of the languages I now had to take as a second foreign language – it didn’t mean his real-life equivalent wasn’t. Surely, I thought, English native speakers were learning languages; it just wasn’t photogenic enough for TV.
Gabriel Ricard celebrates his love of Christmas flicks in the latest edition of Captain Canada’s Movie Rodeo.
Even the universe lets me down. I’m drunk, awake.
Is this how to feel? Next morning’s sunk in my rib cage.
There’s something romantic about a building condemned.
All that space. All the never-smashed ribs in my rib cage.
I’m afraid that if I don’t hang on every word he says
nod approvingly at all the right moments in his ramblings about cars and work
and the driving conditions to and from work
that he’ll decide I’m also not very interesting
wonder why he’s sitting next to me at all.
I could tell that spending time with my parents made Eve miss her family. By that time, I had suggested we go visit them many times, but she would always refuse—“It’s not the right time,” she would say, or, “I’m just not ready.” I didn’t push. Another month went by.
As an adult, I have more curiosity about what would lead a group of young people into this counterculture lifestyle. I also have a deeper understanding. Adulting is hard, the world is terrifying, and finding some solidarity with peers doesn’t sound too bad right about now.
There, the good girls sew poodle skirts
and pad their bras. The boys balance
on the cusp of manhood, not sure
if they wish to fight or to evade the draft.
The red distance
of radio towers above us.
My days a rat king.
The ocean without sleep.
I was Chana once,
on the verge of choking
and devotion for the locusts
in my mouth.
Sean Woodard analyzes the religious horror elements of the theme for The Omen.
COMICS / Mr. Butterchips / November 2018 / Alex Schumacher
Butterchips comes face to face with true horror in his latest adventure.
Kolleen introduces the horror issue and celebrates 7 years of Drunk Monkeying it around.
“I haven’t seen the doctor in two years,” the voice says again, making me flinch. “I’m worried about what the doctor will find.” The spoon falls into the bowl. The heap of oatmeal looks bloated and sickly. The malignant cells in the raisins have undoubtedly metastasized.
The light thickened into blood that pooled at my feet in a methodical flood, and there were things in the blood, nameless shapes that bobbed just beneath the surface. I stumbled backwards, slipped, fell three steps, and grasped onto the banister. Then I turned and hobbled after my friends, my own panicked breath not loud enough to diminish the sound of blood dripping behind me.
And now my son is screaming in the backseat, near-impact,
while all I can hear are tires slipping on gravel and how,
in some twisted way, that father didn’t want his child to
be afraid, and how Styrofoam can feel cold as a knife
A woman at the store: I’ve had two,
I wear Spanx with jeans. I am Spanx,
holding myself in shape against the world.
Maybe we never figure out how to figure.
his ears picking up on the announcement of
corn chowder from twelve to two
but also hearing the thin, white-mist howl of wolves
pushed past wet muzzles and blue-dotted tongues
(they go in caves, Danny, where it’s warm)
Wallabies stop; sniff the air, bound off up the hills and away.
Snakes take to their hollows. Something has changed but
the sun stays the same and the heat and not even a cloud
in the sky when the mullock heaps stir. Hands sifting for gold
emerge from the piles, push back stones from the dirt.