Month: November 2012

Jordan Blum – Commemoration

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Commemoration 

Juliette sat with stuffed animals in the darkness. Her mother placed the cake on the table; a pink and white “9” rested in its center, providing the only illumination in the room. A droplet fell onto the frosting. Her father had just opened a window and finished taping another red streamer to the ceiling. He threw more confetti into the air, hoping she would become lost in laughter. Some of it landed on the cake, most of it on the table, and a few sparse circles covered the framed black & white photo of Elizabeth playing in a sandbox. A plate lay in front of it. Juliette saw the candle flicker in the glass, an orange streak of life in the space between them. They sat together and watched the flame as it danced around the wicker.

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The Tiger Moon

By Lauren Beck

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1997

The bulging moon sits like a giant Buddha belly, low in the sky, magnified by the
polluted atmosphere and bright lights of suburbia. From my view on the ground,
the branches of a weeping willow tree scratch across the moon’s surface, creating
open gashes, unhealed scars. The pond below me is completely still but for an
occasional ripple initiated by the soft autumn breeze.

I decide to memorize this image, to take a mental snapshot. My head rests on the
roots of a willow tree, turned left to face the moon. Blurry blades of grass invade
my peripheral. I shift until the moon is centered among the descending willow
branches, like bony fingers scraping across light. Satisfied, I let my arms flop
to the ground, palms up, summoning.…

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Immediately Post-Break Up, Explained

By Jake Wrenn

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If I were crazy—as in, my action potentials askew, my cranial nerves unnerved, a great
psychic disconnect between thought and reality—I wouldn’t linger at the train stop.
I wouldn’t stare at the sky and flex tinfoil over my head, or laugh fist-clenched at
a joke no one told. I wouldn’t argue the geographic advantages that the allied Germany
and Russia have in the fight against the moon, tell you about my drinking problem, or
wear my pants backward. If I were crazy—as in, the severe and repeated misfiring of
neurotransmitters in my head—I wouldn’t advertise it. I wouldn’t be involved in or be the
target of any national government conspiracy; there would be no men in black suits
watching from the bushes; I wouldn’t contort my face for my strange relationship to
germs or understand the long-winded allegories within words.…

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