In the stillness of the bathroom, my pulse pounds in my ears.I hold my breath to focus yetmy hands are sweaty,making it hard to take care of business. Afterward, I double check the lock on the door.Soft snores float along the hallway frombedrooms on the other side.Sweet dreams for my family, blissfully unaware,the next 180 […]
The moonlight casts the basement in an eerie glow. Back to the wall, I squat on the cement. The floorboards creak above, slow footsteps. A toilet flushes. I unbutton my jacket, flip my hair over my shoulders. Nothing to do but wait, wait, wait. Silence will come—it always does. I know these moments before a job well done. B & E, robbing the corner store, stealing cars in the rich side of town. Check, check, check. The clock strikes […]
She sits on top of a mountain, crossesher legs andbounces a free foot in the air, fields are barren in the valleybelow, skin cracked and brokenpot-bellied kids wail, a ferociousnessnot even a mother can stem. She blows hot air to the heavens,tossing the cloudsdrags painted fingernails across thescorched earth, gauging it like acheckerboard. Fat drops […]
It’s Friday night, late I boot up a DVD, so last centurythe screen flickers, a flash, memories caught in timeme, draped in white silk, toes squished into Jimmy Cho’s. you, that smile, a penguin, hands reaching out to mine.To love and cherish forever.When did the trouble begin? Not during takeoff, the airport, a honeymoon of […]
Writing mysteries and thrillers is a blast, yet there are times I love to play with words and ideas in different forms. This usually happens when facing plot holes that require rethinking or when a scene or a chapter is so tense that I need to step outside to take a breather. Welcome to a […]
The room is sterile, institutional, walls the colour of egg yolk, a dying plant on the window ledge. Four beds, women with broken hips, grey hair fine as mist, arms like milky reeds, their eight-veined feet pressed together as though in prayer. Harried on my lunchbreak I sit, no fan of sticky plastic seats. Gran points a […]
I plod down the street to the corner, a walker as my guide careful to navigate the cracks on the sidewalk, heat bouncing off the pavement.Inside the store sweat drips down my back and my chest in rivers I pass by aisle one and twosharp righttugging open the glass door at the end of aisle […]
my brother is off to school,backpack over a shouldereyes glued to the phone in handwhite buds dangling from his ears. he doesn’t turn when I wave,his head bobs and the only sound on the streetare his big floppy feetslapping the pavement. as he approaches corner to cross the road alone, my heart beats hard and […]
Do you see me? Alone, I am resolute Towering sunflowers, Gran’s churned butter dripping from cobs of field-picked corn, Post-it notes and warning signs and egg yolks, the tang of lemon drops, the deep gold of antiquity. Daffodils are stars over prairie wheat fields that move in waves. Blue is my lover Cloudless skies invite […]