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Embers like fireflies tonight. I want to call it beautiful but these orange hills in the morning will be black. The snowing ash greys my two-day beard. Was this flake once a book whose pages I've savored? I turn my face downwind to find breath but only taste the smoke of trees that gave me air. A crouching flame stands up and shows how tall he really is. He dances on dry leaves, delighting in his craft. All I can do is press record and watch on the three inch screen. Tiny pieces of yesterday fall onto the ground and onto my tape.

“You know Santa isn’t real, right Jedd?” A sudden pain erupted between my lungs and echoed through my chest.  I prayed she could not hear the deafening beats. “Yeah, I figured,” I answered with feigned confidence. “OK, just checking,” my sister responded, without a trace of suspicion or remorse. It wasn’t a total lie; I did have my suspicions.  I had heard my parents tiptoe down the stairs on Christmas Eve, just as I had done on so many other nights to sneak cookies from the kitchen.  Once I even found a remote-controlled car under their bed that bore a striking resemblance to the present that appea

Our ever-reaching thirst unfurls and one day we shall rule the world. Once rivers flowed of melted snow and over them we laid our roads. Those streets, we knew them each by name, ordered, efficient, all the same. We caked the valleys with cement, and never asked for Her consent. Tonight we toast to blackened skies, kings and queens of our own demise. Tomorrow we shall rule it all: we'll taste sweet triumph as we Fall.

Defeated they lie, two-by-fours and branches of international origin. Still, dead, and strewn across the shore. Slain, whether by some boy tyrant or unwitting passer-by, a fortress now lies in ruins. Remnants of a kingdom lost.

How silly he looks, holding that contraption, mopping the air above the sand, wearing those oversized headphones that keep out the sound of gently crashing waves. Doesn't he have anything better to do? How silly he looks, wearing sandals over socks, and a faded blue Hawaiian shirt. At his side, an optimistic fannie-pack to hold his weathered trinkets. We try not to stare at the silly-looking man as he saunters down the beach. And yet, when he stops, bends over, and patiently, carefully sifts through the sand, something flutters in our chests, and glimmers like a dormant hope. We all turn our heads to watch.

You wretched bug who crawls this city path, my pace is not to be defied by thee! This once I'll stumble to adjust my step but tell your friends to stay out of my way. A longer stride would end your pointless life and you'd become a gooey sidewalk splotch. These droves of men in 3-piece suits care not; your small existence is expendable! You foolish mite, you march toward certain doom! Just now near-death passed by your little head, you thought the day had blessed you with a breeze. Refreshed by ignorant beliefs you trot along a trail that's fraught with disregard. Like Pythia, I know your fated end: Dear bug, you'll know the tas