creative prose

The sun hangs low in the sky like an overripe orange. You wish for a moment that you could reach up and pluck it, sink your teeth into it so you could taste something sweet, empty your mouth of the blood and dirt that has made a home there.You used to bite your lip...

I grew up in a house near the Randal Tyson Recreational Complex in Springdale, Arkansas. For sixth and seventh grade, I went to Helen Tyson Middle School, just down the road from Don Tyson Parkway, which would take you to the corporate headquarters of the...

The days along the bus route blur together, traveling to and from her trailer home, kindergarten, first grade, second grade, an hour each way. She is the first kid on the bus and the last kid off. The days along the bus route blur together, traveling to and from her...

I made music before I could speak. I drummed and hummed along with tunes it seemed only I could hear. When I could stand, I hauled myself to the piano and pressed the keys blindly above my head. I wrote my first song before I could reach the pedals. When I was strong...

They met six months ago, in a low-lit bar downtown frequented by corporate twentysomethings. Virginia saw him approaching out of the corner of her eye and thought he looked nice enough. He was tall, wearing black pants and a dark blue button-up. While he talked to her...

My neighbor in Idaho was an eyeful. I watched her when I was feeling bored, hungry, or restless. I got to feeling like I knew her, even though we rarely spoke. We exchanged a hello now and then when she came or went as I was washing my truck or carrying my...

   Here is a list of things I know about the author.Either he was very old or he had a proclivity for the vintage. His briefcase says as much: tan, leather, mid-twentieth century—the sort corporate grunts carried back to their white-picket-fence homes at the...

Jacob Papadopoulos runs ahead of me, past the turnstile and the shag teddy bear mascot, launching his petite 50-year-old body gracefully into the hard plastic seat of the ride. He resembles a trapeze artist more than a distinguished classics professor at Manatee...

Sunaina stood in the back room of the house. Painted canvases and framed paintings leaned against each other along the lengths of two walls. A heap of rolled-up watercolor paintings stood in a corner. By her side, the afternoon light flooded in through sliding glass...

On my knees in front of him, I try to picture him as an altar. I don’t pray, and I also don’t particularly believe in god, so the image shifts—more than I would like it to. Eventually, everything settles into one thought, one feeling, one penetrating pinprick...

​“I’ll go and tend to the roses!” Gerald hitched up the rusty wheelbarrow and pushed it along the wooden path. He was headed for the bushes opposite the huge pit that evoked the shape of a pond. Swerving from side to side, he was careful not to step too heavy on any...

All the men in my life have problems that seem easy to fix, but none of them ever seem to fix them. I find it hard to empathize —at times. “I wish we only had to see each other once a week,” Paul says. He’s complaining about his girlfriend. “Three times a week is...