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Birds

Birds

I. You are still little, and your neighbour has a cat called Moonface. An impossibly beautiful creature, all languor and white fluff and huge beryl eyes, and yet, as should be expected of her kind, a sadist and a killer. Moonface is in the habit of decorating the edge...

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Kintsugi

Kintsugi

One time, a porcelain doll lived within a music box. Beautiful, everyone who saw it said, pale skin and dark hair, raised en pointe with hands brushing the sky, forever dancing in an endless twirl. The doll was fragile; everyone knew that, but no one paid much mind....

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Blackberry Pie

Blackberry Pie

Cora couldn’t explain why she was baking a blackberry pie at three in the morning, even though she hated blackberry pie. She couldn’t explain why she dug into every cardboard box, searching for all her kitchen tools. She couldn’t explain why she tossed everything else...

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Weed

Weed

The sky went dark on a Monday, pushing the straining sun behind a curtain of smoke, creating an opaque swath of grayness where light would catch – lost – never making it to the retina, never lighting up the things we had been used to seeing: tree leaves in the...

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Another Friday

Another Friday

Back home inside our first floor apartment at 2PM, as we were, after a morning at the city library where we spent several hours while mom searched through the mysteries for one that suited her and I picked out a couple of graphic novels, after mom had splashed the...

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Good Dog

Good Dog

Dad calls it “Eyesore Trashtown”. I don't read perfect yet, but looking at the letters on the sign, I don’t think that’s right. “It’s called Eastlake Terrace,” Mom says, hugging her purse tight and shooing me into the elevator. “Dad thinks he’s funny.” Dad wasn’t...

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Dog Years

Dog Years

I was on our excuse for a back porch, no one ever put in screens, and it smelled like oranges under my finger nails. Jack lowered himself into the lawn chair next to the old Boy Scout cot I was on, looking up at the rain-stained roof with bits of tar paper peeking...

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Nest

Nest

“The birds are always watching,” Mama used to say. We had a bird cage in nearly every room of the house. The parakeets in the living room seemed more at home than I did. The lovebirds in the kitchen reminded everyone how bonded they were every time you tried to make...

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Blossoming

Blossoming

The bruises bloom like purple flowers. Hibiscus perhaps. Hibiscus rosa-sinensis. The marks will fade to a deep blue. Like cineraria. Cineraria senetti. After that, a sickly yellow. Tansy. Tanacetum vulgare. You recite the names in your head, your mouth forming...

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