On Living & Creating With An Auto-Immune Disorder (and Emily Dickinson)

I have the same eye condition doctors think Emily Dickinson had. Not bragging or anything. Continue reading →

[WORLD] The Last Clean, Dark Beach in Lebanon: The Life Of Sea Turtles

And it’s completely and utterly worth it–to hold these soft, white leathery orbs in your hands, to acknowledge so intimately that one-in-one thousandth hope, to put your energy into that orb, that one, saying Yes, I believe in you that much. Continue reading →

I’m In Love With A Dead Man (And His Name Is Farrokh Bulsara)

He was a man of the most colourful expression traced with shadows of delicate thoughtfulness. He was a butterfly. Continue reading →

Jail for a Night

I went to Terror Behind the Walls this weekend. It’s an old jail in Philadelphia that is transformed into a horror house every Halloween season.  The sprawling grounds are infested with gruesome zombies, escaped convicts, depraved prison guards, and they sidle up to you in the dark, even while you wait on line…slowly approach, sniff … Continue reading →

Witchy For Halloween: Let’s Make An Ancestor Altar

We all want to be witchy from time to time. The Ancestor Altar is a simple way to celebrate Halloween in a way that many cultures share. Continue reading →

It’s Not Dead Yet: Creepy Thrift Shop Shit… Corn Boy and the Journey to the Vagina Corn

Corn Boy spent all summer tending his corn plant. The past spring he had taken his family’s last kernel and planted it in the soil. They had nothing else to plant. Today was the day he was to harvest. He picked his ear of corn and went home to show his father and sister. Corn … Continue reading →

Get Your Spooky On: The Roots and Somber Rites of Halloween

There’s a whole world of darkness and an otherworld of death awaiting all of us, and putting nutmeg and cinnamon in it and calling it “pumpkin spice” to try to ignore the looming reality of our own mortality doesn’t make it go away. Continue reading →

It’s Not Dead Yet: Add Some Spook to Halloween (or Can We End the Cutesy Crap for Once?)

A few weeks ago I posted about Halloween costumes for girls, and how few options there are for girls to be strong, messy, capable characters for Halloween. That post got quite a bit feedback, mainly with even more ideas for costumes. I got to thinking this week, as Halloween is just a couple of weeks … Continue reading →

Second Murder

 Artifact Whose body is in this bag we found in the murky hellish wonder of the pond? Were you paradoxical and sometimes cruel? Or were you quivering like a fish on the line. Whose crescents, whose half-lives? We press each bone like a key, too excited by the secret.             … Continue reading →

Columbus Circle

I saw him shove her. “Nat,” I whispered, “I think, he-” My words froze as he punched her pregnant stomach. A palpable tension had descended on the subway platform in Columbus Circle. Couples turned to one another with worried whispers. Glances lost their subtlety, and people openly stared at the raging man, who had just … Continue reading →

LIT: The Nurse

This piece is one part of a collection of stories called Amelia. — I was very young then and my hands still trembled when I poured ice water into cups by the beds of sleeping old men and even worse when I had to take a temperature or insert an IV. All of my memories of … Continue reading →

The First Murder

Quiet is the moment after, an endless corridor.
Continue reading →

Poet Radar: Natalie Diaz on Womanhood

In her book When My Brother Was an Aztec, she doesn’t shy away from controversial, emotionally wrought subjects, such as tribal life on a reservation, her brother’s addiction to meth, womanhood, and poverty. Continue reading →

It’s Not Dead Yet: Creepy Thrift Shop Shit & Morris, A Genetic Tale

In 1996, a young man decided to apply for graduate school in genetics. He wasn’t very smart, and slept through his ethics class. He wanted to show his professors he was capable and inventive, so he started a secret project using genes stolen from the lab. He went to a small state college in northern … Continue reading →

Poetry Review: The Glimmering Room By Cynthia Cruz

“Ambassadors from the Netherworld / Will begin / Their jet-like descent. Death, / Disguised inside me, already, / As sleaze.” Continue reading →