By Liz Posner Every day after school, the squeak of rubber on linoleum told me Tevin had arrived. I’d been a Title I classroom teacher for one week, and already Tevin Walker latched on to me like a duckling. He rolled his bicycle into my classroom for tutoring, whether he needed help with an assignmentContinue reading “After-School Mumble Rap With Tevin”
Category Archives: Uncategorized
In My Life
By Samantha I remember him hunched in front of the desktop computer in jeans and a baby blue ribbed merino wool sweater with a V-neck – the one I’d helped him select at the Gap. Eyes solemn, mouth resting in a quiet line. “My sister had our dad put together her wedding playlist,” I toldContinue reading “In My Life”
Hype v. Devastating
By Dana May In one part of the Brodsky Quartet version of Bjork’s “Hyperballad,” the strings take you to the cliff where Bjork keeps returning to help her feel safe with her mountaintop companion. I allowed the song to throw me off the edge, like car-parts, bottles, and cutlery, with that one slide in the violin solo, asContinue reading “Hype v. Devastating”
A New Playlist
By Joe Markell There was a deafening silence as the ringing in his ears loudened to a scream. He was upside down, dizzy and confused. Blood dripped in the grassy snow below his face and when he followed the source of the blood, he saw his arm hanging limp and broken. It felt as thoughContinue reading “A New Playlist”
Gristle in Times Square
By Shieva Salehnia I had dreamed of New York as a gritty, glistening, dark paradise. Steaming and winding streets, some lined in cobblestone, and the smell of putrid river water splashing up against concrete barriers that keep the East River from making contact with its observers above. I imagined the conglomerate feeling more than anyContinue reading “Gristle in Times Square”
Other People on the Subway
By Dana May Each subway ride is a gamble. We all get on, hoping to reach our destination at a reasonable time. This desire alone is a longing, as we wait in limbo down there for a train to arrive or in a stalled car. I pass the time letting my phone or a book fill in theContinue reading “Other People on the Subway”
Subway Loop
By Joe Markell Where there once was darkness, there was light. A human dressed in a uniform grabbed Bottle out of a container and lifted him into the light. Bottle squinted as he was carried toward rows of different bottles stacked neatly together in a grid. The human set him in front of a rowContinue reading “Subway Loop”
The Last Train Out of Boston
By Liz Posner It was 3:22 p.m. when I realized the boy I hopelessly loved might be dead. The campus center was crowded that afternoon in 2013, packed with students sad to waste sparkling Boston daylight indoors, taunted by the brilliant sun reflecting off the green grass lawn, blinding us through the glass windows. TheContinue reading “The Last Train Out of Boston”
Beware Of the Closing Doors
By Samantha On my last subway ride to your apartment, you closed your eyes the whole time. I was fresh off the Chinatown bus in a dirty black winter jacket. I had french fry breath and smudged eyeliner. A backpack full of books and stapled paper. Look at me, look at me, I thought. “Beware ofContinue reading “Beware Of the Closing Doors”