The Last Stockade

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…walls are stripped bare, the cubicles emptied. No more potted plants or flowers, pictures of loved ones, or construction paper devotionals from children. Sharon is mildly surprised that the lights are still on. She has holed up in the 4th floor accounting department waiting for the end.

The entire corporate structure of NCADS had been moved to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Iowa, for God’s sake. But Sharon isn’t going. She hasn’t eaten anything since they took out the vending machines, but the faucets in the bathrooms still work. She shakes her stainless steel water bottle as if it’s a tribal gourd…

By Matthew C. McLean

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The Golden Goblet

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…your weary body

Drink from my golden goblet

The most delicate and finest of wines

A potion of wild raspberries, bitterness and jeering contempt

Assault the light that dare not shine

It is the elixir of a dispassionate heart

If you possess no fear

Taste the confectionery of sadness call

Where love frightened evades approach

Upon remembrance of the long dark fall

Sip from the golden goblet

Taste the cruel sweetness of pain

Damnation to those who denounce the motive behind the actions

Until the bed of anguish you have lain

But these rare wines have no equal in…

By Tammy M Darby


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On the Moon

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…want the moon? I’ll give you the moon! Anything. Name it. It’s yours.”

I watched his beautiful lips move as he spoke in earnest. He was serious, of course. He always was.

“You stole that from a movie.” I sighed and cocked my head to the side, staring at him like a loyal Labrador.

“I’m serious,” He insisted, resting his hands on my shoulders and shifting me so that he could look me in the eyes.

This of course meant I had to tilt my head back and rock on the balls of my feet to look him in the…

By L.E.

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A Day to Remember

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…busy day but I had managed to get Mom and Dad to let me go outside and play for a couple hours before the wedding. As long as I promised to come straight home and get ready. I was to be on my best behaviour and under no circumstances was I to pick on Ginny today. It was a big day for her. I didn't really care about Ginny's big day. So what she was getting married. People got married everyday! But I agreed to their demands and spent my free time playing baseball with the guys at the empty…

By Leah Pryor

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An Admirer's Lament

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…been of the opinion that love can be restricted to that between two people of the opposite sex. Rather, it can embrace love of all kinds and all who consent to involve themselves with the practice. Even if, as can often be the circumstances, the love goes one way alone.

The often misunderstood culture known as “fandom” has always been a kind of love of the first order. People who are willing and able to involve themselves with fictional worlds and people to the degree that they appear, to them, to be tantalizingly real, and much more enjoyable, in a…

By David Perlmutter

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Aberdeen

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…older man from Scotland drank a pint of whiskey; neat.

And wandering off the known path home, was swallowed by the peat.

The earthy taste of scotch now on his tongue forever more

His spirit haunts the pubs about as ghostly local lore.


The simple-minded townsfolk swear they’d felt his presence still

When, after dark, inside their hearts they’d feel an icy chill.

A drenched and musty smelling form appeared with reaching hand

To clutch at souls of sinners who might dwell within this land.

To venture out at night upon the streets of Aberdeen

Your mind should not be…

By James Geehring


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Wishing Well

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…the bottom of the wishing well,

Were all the things I remembered.

The whimsical stories you asked me to tell,

And all of the things you never heard.

At the bottom of the wishing well,

Your words are but a memory;

Of all the bullshit you tried to sell.

What I bought was misery.

At the bottom of the wishing well,

Is where I cast the stone;

To a place where learned lessons dwell,

And the memory of you is only…

By Jessica Doland

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The Last Weekend with Our Storyteller

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…I was little, my brother and I loved to visit an old man on the mountain, kilometers away from our village. He lived on his own. In a hut, which admittedly, I was obsessed with: old man had built it with twigs between bamboos and embroidered it with eternal soul— so immortal it never gone for a Burton. A skill that was rather incongruous to how the Rwandan villagers built their huts; so impeccable that from a distance, it seemed to be plastered together in harmony with his personality. Old man had a gentle demeanour, and he must have borrowed…

By Tshepo S. Molebatsi

Facebook URL: https://web.facebook.com/molebatsisilas

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To Good to be True

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…your picture close to my heart

My thoughts pull me back to when I fell in love with you

 

Day weeks or months, I don’t know how long it took

Our eyes met, hands touched and I felt it perusing through

 

Love needs no security; love needs not to be feared

You taught me the art of loving for endless years

 

Looks like those of a fictional hero, graceful in his ways

Our eyes locked, heart stopped, you took my breath away

 

A coincidence or a miracle, what was it I wonder

What did I ever do to deserve someone…


Website: https://theserenespirituality.blogspot.com/

By Anonymous

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Introvert's Dream

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…depression lead to weariness
Society refuse to oblige to my plight
I am face with terror on earth that
I felt everything is working against me
Revolution came and pass but I am still
expecting mine.

I sometimes feel dejected by social
Obstacles that maim and constrain my endeavors
Tides and time are like enemies to me
And I felt lonely always despite the uproar surrounding me.

I am in the midst of sorrow and my
heart tumbles like the rough way leading
to my house. When I for see journey of thousands
Years, I smile and when life chain …

By Petah Blutife

Twitter: peterboluwatif4

Facebook URL: https://m.facebook.com/peterboluwatife.ojediran?ref=bookmarks

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