Winter here dies like someone drowning. Snow claws back across the ground then recedes in gasps, clinging to the shadows of houses and trees until all at once it is over, drenched in sunlight, summer once again.

When Margie puts together the work to be displayed every week, an email is sent out for people to take care of refreshments. Margie, of course, locks down her own name for the charcuterie board but utensils, cups, drinks and perhaps some extra refreshments are up for grabs. I usually volunteer for the alcohol subsection of the drink category, I find it easier to shop for an effective time, not an enjoyable one. So, when I feel the show pace start to dwindle, I sneak 10 mg of MDMA into the wine.

It’s everything the cliches say. The tip-top of the world. Every single point on this Earth is lower than me at this moment. The profound loneliness fills me with power. In all directions, I am alone.

I’ve conquered the mountain.

I’ve conquered the entire world.

I look out at the other peaks and wonder what they hold. All this, and I’m not happy with what I have.

Grandpa said the world didn't end one day. The old ways of doing things just receded, a wave falling back into the ocean. Lucy understood what he meant though she'd never seen the ocean and expected she never would. Even now there were places where people drove cars and flew in planes and kept electric lights on all the time, but nobody could afford that in Vermont.

THE LIFE AND FASCINATING ADVENTURES OF MISS ELIZA “ELI” GENTLE WHO TRAVELLED EUROPE AND ASIA DRESSED AS A MAN! ALONG WITH HER ENCOUNTERS WITH DANGEROUS WEATHER EXOTIC BEASTS AND THE LAW AS WELL AS HER UNMASKING OF A  MYSTERY POET TAKEN FROM HER JOURNALS AFTER SHE RECENTLY DIED OF FEVER

The boasting doesn’t come from pride. It comes from a rotting shame that grasps at any tool of the ego to assuage guilt. Professing, often only to themselves, the righteousness of their act of killing in an attempt to claw back the very humanity that they stole from someone else.

The facade above the automatic doors gives absolutely no warning that this is one of those malls where one entrance sends you straight into a store, forcing you to bear the awkwardness of being inside a store with no intention to buy anything.

Dumbass arts outreach volunteer guy doesn’t realize she’s concussed doesn’t realize she can’t read right now can’t write right now and even if she could it sure as hell wouldn’t make her heal.

Supposedly, it’s 2:00 AM. Alex glares sideways at every clock he sees, letting his head spin in that direction until it loops back into him. Having spent years doing everything he could possibly do in his apartment, he centers himself to the task of pushing his window open.

Arms folded over the balcony’s creaky railing, Zoe looks down at the dancers. As they stumble in time with a skip in the CD, Zoe observes the lines of their movement with unwarranted awe. As impossible as it seems, she hopes that one day she’ll be just as beautiful.