Ashley turned off the busy interstate highway. She drove down one long overpacked road after another. Ten miles took nearly thirty minutes to reach her destination. She turned down the river road. It was almost deserted as most people raced from one job to another, or perhaps to their sleeping places.
She paused at one of the drive through pull-offs. A brown and muddy river had been beautiful many generations ago. Dead limbs stood where trees had once towered over the river. Sludge filled; the oily stream struggled slowly downstream to join the ocean.
The pull-offs had been designed to make this a place to eat between jobs for today’s workers. Few wanted to stop here and contemplate what their grandparents had done to the environment.…
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Immense vociferations echoed through the amusement park from the terrified onlookers as bright blue sparks spat from the back of the “Number One” roller coaster that was stuck upside down on its final loop.
“We have to keep calm, I’m sure that the emergency crews are on their way” Robert stated as he attempted to alleviate the trepidation that had captured both he and his best friend.
“It’s been fifteen minutes, I know they’ll get here but I doubt it will be easy-” Jake replied before profusely vomiting from the nausea that he struggled to contain.
“This high in the air isn’t a good place to be but it’ll be okay soon!” Robert exclaimed, trying to calm the other distraught riders most of whom were young children that dangled behind them.…
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There is the mythology of birthmarks that they
Represent your past lives’ ends, how you met
Your maker at the edge of the field.
What do mine say about me? My stomach
Dyed brown from a stab wound in feudal Spain,
A domestic dispute over the manzanilla olive.
Or what of the matching café au lait splotches
On both my upper knees? Groveling on scorched
Stone steps before any Athenian god who listened.
How about the mark on my neck, just above
The clavicle? Some warrior in southern Asia’s
Attempt to open my airways one last time.…
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My mother was a child of the Iron Curtain who became a woman of the Cold War. It wasn’t Ellis Island that greeted her into the land of the free but Lady Liberty herself, and every new immigrant on her flight waved back.
She, like many Russian immigrants, embraced her new country and its culture as she navigated the difficulties of learning a new language, managing tyranny of the low-paying jobs, and the strange reactions of people to her behaviors that once felt natural. But no amount of hardship and everyday challenge could tame her zest for life, curiosity about her new homeland, and a developed affection for all things Disney. And over the years, a visit to Walt Disney World became an experience she yearned for.…
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weapons aren’t just blades, knives and swords
they’re eyes that throw glances
sharp enough to cut through your ego
make you think of the ruins you’ve created
weapons are words we don’t swallow
that we allow to come up
through the broken and cracked pipes
that might burst with emotion
weapons are moving towards
uninhabitable lands filled with toxins
designed to kill the human spirit…
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my fire is not for symbolism
for your joint or cigarette
it is to make me a martyr for the war
the fight forced on those on the bottom
of the color wheel
my fire is not for symbolism
for white women to try and put out
with their tears made of punishment
and pride
it is for brown and black girls
who have never seen a way out
who have never had guidance…
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Tom Jefferson’s mind careened from liberty to human events and every which way, so he took a break from his declaration drafting to go shopping.
Tom loved clothes, as all the finest men do, and he especially loved books, but when he got to the marketplace he wanted a little more of the bustle of common humanity. That was the whole point, after all, and a little elbow rubbing would clear his mind all the better.
He headed to the noise of the auction block. It was a slow day, but there were enough lookers and buyers assembled to occupy him. He shook some hands and said hellos and chatted a bit.
Then his attention turned to the block. A beautiful specimen had been led up, looking strong, healthy and young.…
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