I’m Bored
by“I’M BORED.” It used to be annoying when my kids said this. I’d point to their dirty rooms or their musical instruments or ask about their homework. They would roll…
Archive
The Good Place is an Impossible Show
byTHE GOOD PLACE IS OFTEN REFERRED TO AS “AN UNUSUAL HALF-HOUR OF NETWORK TELEVISION” by one of its featured actors, Marc Evan Jackson. This is a slight understatement. The Good…
A Girl from Nowhere
byI WAS IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL WHEN I REALIZED MY FAMILY’S WAY OF LIVING WAS UNUSUAL. My father, an officer in the U.S. Air Force, routinely took assignments that prompted moves…
Baby Boy
byBABY BOY HAS DROWNED. Padrino is the last to notice. He doesn’t unplug his ear buds until The Old Man is pumping Baby Boy’s chest and mouth-to-mouthing. The last of the…
Family Circus
byBROTHER DIDN’T DIE THE DAY DAY HE DECIDED TO RUN OFF AND JOIN THE CIRCUS HIS JUNIOR YEAR. He piled into a tiny car with all the other Clowns wearing…
I Found My Heel at the Foot of an Oak
byI FOUND MY HEEL AT THE FOOT OF AN OAK. I remember someone somewhere calling this bone a talus, or maybe it was a calcaneus, maybe that was the word…
Cloudy
byTHE ROCKING WAKES BONNIE. Though not in bed, she is down and moving. One eye flutters open, sees clouds; the other, stuck. She floats over tall grass, men in reflective…
Sunflower
byMY DAD WAS A BIG BELIEVER IN THE THEORY THAT YOU COULDN’T TURN YOUR LIFE AROUND until you’d truly hit rock bottom, preferably wrenching your elbow and herniating discs four through…
Bruce Wayne, Gotham’s True ‘White Knight’: Repentance, Redemption, and Resurrection in the Dark Knight Trilogy
byMYRIAD COMIC SERIES, TELEVISION SHOWS, MOVIES, ACTION FIGURES, and other various capitalistic ventures have grossed billions on the back of the Caped Crusader. It seems nearly impossible to step into…
Seventeenth and Clay
byWHEN MY HOUSEMATE CAME HOME, I WAS DOUBLED OVER on top of the monstrous 1940’s era heater that dominated the second floor of the flat we rented with two others….