That’s what she left behind, and I put it in my mouth and swallowed.

Papa said he'd be in the stands watching: section H, 5th row, seat 35. During warmups, she had looked, during stretches, she had looked, but she had stopped looking right before the race."Don't worry about me," he had said. "Focus on the race," so when the man had said on…

I was a six year old with no bike. Only the males in my familyhad that privilege. So one morning I got up very early, before the older siblings awoke, crept out the back porch door where Iknew there would be two bikes in the yard just waiting for me and my…

I'm a librarian. A reader. I identify as a four-eyed person. I've always worn glasses. I got my first pair in the second grade. It was a miracle! The blurry world I'd inhabited all my life suddenly came into focus. I could see the blackboard! I could read street signs! I…

When I finally went back to school in the fourth grade, after coming down with polio, my classmates were very welcoming, though I couldn't go outside and run around like them yet at recess or lunch time. That would come, just not right away. But it was th

If you get crushed in New York City that's your own problem.

Before the bills, before the fighting, before the need to blame something, there was a moment blown empty in the span of one doctor’s breath, a moment where bar nights and weekend benders had no meaning, a moment where the future was as blank as the bac

I want to talk like Rose Tyler, and be whisked away by the strapping Docor, preferably in David Tennant form.

I sought to feel something. I hunted my mortality. I craved that rush of life pulsating through my veins.

I ought to see, in Mr. Smith's dilated pupils, the projection of his last reverie.

This is an older story that was inspired by research on naming conventions while trying to find record of my own ancestors in the Ukraine. I did not find them. Instead I was inspired to write this.

I never thought I’d miss the sound of church bells, reminding me of my sudden apostasy, faintly ringing over the rumpus where even the birds can’t get a word in edgeways.

Track One Johnny Burkemeister, lead vocals and flutist of the band Albatross Antics, sits on his bed thinking in silence. His elbow rests on his knee, and his palm on his forehead with his fingers running through his dirty-blonde hair. He is staring at a copy of Paste…

Sundays after Mass, Sister Edburga gathered the team in the shower room, we stripped naked in a circle, held hands and said a prayer we’d win our game. A boy no one knew walked alongside her with a box full of jockstraps.

She went up first, I followed, a respectful three paces behind. Now, I know what you’re thinking: I was perfectly placed to steal a quick, if innocent, glance, and she would never see. The house is a center hall colonial, and there are no mirrors on the s