I was going to write about counting American flags along the highway and missing my exit, about how I see my mother as Elizabeth Taylor mixed with a Bonnie Raitt song, but I keep coming back to HoW.

I recall a zillion starry moments in North Carolina that had us laughing or crying, the heart we passed around, how I missed all the dancing until the last day when music poured from the windows, around the porch, through our green cocoon; it was our own Big…

The theater was dark and crowded, opening night of a blockbuster; no one would have expected less than a full house.   I leaned forward to see the guy yelling at the screen - one row in front, four seats down; a young guy, maybe twenty, sitting with two friends.  Great,  Three punks at the theater.  It’s not bad enough that I pay $12 a ticket, have to wear cheesy Wayfarer-like 3D glasses and go nearly into hock to buy popcorn and a drink… I must tolerate the Woop-Boy commentary track…

When Elaa and the children came back into camp you almost wouldn't have known they'd been changed, except that whereas before they'd tended to stick to the shadows like prey in the land of the tigers, now they walked calmly as cats through a house full of mice, or rather perhaps, of staff trained to see to their every last need.

Still, Duklus's men were not staff, and they had sharp noses, and they'd soon smell the blood, so to speak, which meant that these young Nosferatu…

The old rock n' roller calls it the "nexus of the crisis, and the origin of storms," but to me it's just another dive bar, a refuge for the weary and rejected set precariously on a rocky promontory overlooking the harbor.  When I tell the bartender, a dark beauty with an Ouroboros bracelet around her slim wrist, that I got directions from Buck, she says, "He's still got an open tab he needs to take care of," but I don't guess it's my place to tell her that tab ain't getting paid anytime…

The spirits passed freely among the hard working revelers, yet the tune abruptly changed. News broke that the factory will be closing and fear struck the majority. How will we maintain and how will we feed the kids?  Johnny knew that the factory owner was selling out and taking the business overseas, but Johnny also knew that Mr. Vito could stay put with minimal losses. Actually, the workers would even take pay cuts to increase Mr. Vito's profits though he would not accept. Ninety…

The wolves came on the first night, stealing up to the wreck in a coordinated dance. In slow deliberate steps, two sleek grays slipped forward, angular heads low to the ground while two others - one gray, one white - weaved and circled the perimeter, cautiously seeking a way to cut in. There was a creaking sound as the bent metal moved - rubbed steel against rock - and the car’s interior light illuminated, revealing the…

Starting a new leaf in life is never easy. Just like building a new website.

There are a lot of things to do and things to consider.As a website owner myself,

I decided to hire a reliable seo company victoria .

It took me a while to decide on building my own site for my small-owned business.

I am really happy and contented with what my seo company victoria

did to my website. It helps me gain…

Those who might someday read this account might protest the changing of young ones so soon, I'd guess for the reason, it seems a great wrong to chop young life off before they've had a chance yet to taste it.

They must remember, I've outlined the dangers of leaving them human--the fears and confusion and possible envy the children would feel with regard to the change in Elaa--which likely would have led to the death of the group and then in short order to physical death, at least for…

The wolves are relentless. They scratch and bang against dented metal, painting transparent streaks of mucus and blood across the windows. Howls of hunger tear at the car as teeth gnash and gums roll, forcing Jaddock to bury deeper under the blanket between the backseats. He has locked all the doors, believing the wolves may actually be capable of opening them. Forcing palms flat over his ears, he squeezes his eyes into…

The children chose to come with Elaa to new life, and not solely because the other road promised short life filled with torment.

As she had always, but now with blood remapping heaven and earth, Elaa let the children inside her to see through her eyes, see the world through her eyes, and their place within it. She let them see, feel, and taste their own death and rebirth, the fading of all the music they'd known and its grand resurrection, polyphonous discourse keyed to…

Orson rises from the black leather Eames chair in his office to refill his mug from the department’s communal Mr. Coffee and rubs his eyes.

He has been reading articles in physics journals that were written by the chairman of the tenure committee as a means of preparing himself for his interview, just one week away.

The man's work is clumsily written, the proofs are scattershot and the…

"So do you ever start out to write a poem and it turns into a song or vice versa?"

"Well, sometimes it turns into a painting."

As he speaks of the still point the dabblers in writing sift out the door while those of us who are hard-core remember the song he wrote about if wishes were horses, beggars would ride, and "I want your body like I want your heart."

And then there was the morning before when someone read aloud Terry Tempest Williams'…

When I don’t feel good I tell her, and she understands; she understands the quaint absence of ‘good’ means my depression, fueled by sporadic bouts of mangled humility and a constant feeling of being perennially and transcendentally lost, has erupted into a hopeless rancor of self-destructive thoughts.

She is the only person in all the cosmos who could ever have the slightest chance at mending my self-depraved soul, and somehow she knows she is the only one.

And somehow, even…

Sit on the edge of the bed, pet, and keep still; Mistress will go behind the screen to change her clothes.  She knows you expect specific forms of attire, and she is inclined to indulge you today.  Waiting for Mistress is a treat of sorts, isn’t it little one?  Mistress comes from behind the screen, and gestures for you to raise the window slightly, which causes a bit of confusion for you she knows, as your visits with her are usually in the dim, closed, sound muffled room you enjoy…

"He took it away again," Anwar lamented as she sat on the old abandoned tire swing, leaning against the chain and imaging it breaking, wrapping around her neck until it took away her last breath.

She thought about the Chinese wishing tree mother kept in the living room and about the wish she'd taken all night to write - on the smallest scrap of paper - but no matter how small or how well hidden she thought she'd made it, he always found it and took it away before God could answer her…

As new life bloomed in her, Elaa decided that she would be the younger ones' agent of change, and this only if they so decided; as this was wisdom, I had to accede, not that I had real choice in the matter...

I found Viraan and brought the children back to the stream and left them there with Elaa.

It was right that they make the choice, even the youngest, the six-year-old girl: exchange meant new life, with the old one sloughed off forever, and all senses stripped,…

Contemplating the blue walls in the tropical sway, where the bar mixes brass nipples and sex on the beach.

We come for the music.

On the floor, couples inhale one another with their eyes, drinking in the moments when their bodies in unison reach another level, their lips moist with saliva. 

I snap in time to the music; enveloping the dance, crocodile shoes in a high walk, heels, four-inch-long incisors scraping the floor’s reverberating…

Pressed up against the window with an air duct beneath my bare toes,

My mind can't forget what my heart knows.

My mind can't forget where my heart goes.

I thought that I forgot.

My breath collects against the window, but my palm leaves behind the only mark.

My best intentions condense before me.

I still have one hand free, but neither one can reach.

I can’t remember when or why he came into my life but we’ve been friends for a lot of years. We always make each other smile and I hate leaving him out there in that storm.

I even gave him his own solar light so he could read at night and in the summer he wallows in a bed of flowers but in the last month or so that smile has turned into a sna…