tricksyriver

Trudging through damp sand, counting the lines where the snakes have crossed the road. Air like a damp towel; it’s too heavy to breathe. Knees scream at the feel of the concrete floor; swallow pills to shush them. At least my feet don’t feel broken. Steven cuts sub buns like he’s performing surgery. Meticulous, even knife strokes. There would be little scarring. He’s a sweet kid, but a bad listener. Always does the exact thing I tell him not. Big blue eyes are impossible to rebuke. Riley broke his leg while running in the dark. It was stupid, and he’s suffering for it. One week in the powder blue cast that sta

"It's degenerative. There's nothing else you can do." No, but really. What's the next test? The next plan? Where do we go from here? "You can take something for the pain. That's all." I'm 30 years old, and there's nothing left to do.

My ankles were swollen with venom, the first time this year, plagued for hours by ants and mosquitoes stirred up by the rain. The rain does not freshen the smell of rotting gator skulls, or the mingling of wet dog and muddy diaper from my ansty kids. The blooming weeds do not distract us with bouquets of perfume. Heady, I once read in a column about spring. Drunk on heady flowers. Heady is how I feel just before a migraine is birthed immediately behind my left eye and the base of my skull. There are no migraines today because the sunshine is gone and the only reason for squinting is the steady rain. My shoes are soaked from th

He falls in love with her on a Saturday, when she shows him how to skip stones across the river and doesn't laugh when his sink two, three, four times before she corrects his wrists. He likes being around her because she keeps his thoughts quiet, even though she isn't; the tv in the living room is always switched to The History Channel and he laughs quietly while she waxes poetically about Napoleon, holds her hand all the way through the Salem Witch Trials and when she falls off the edge into sleep somewhere between The Coercive Acts and the Boston Massacre, he lets her doze against his shoulder. When they go out to dinner, he holds the door

  After the incident with Gwen and her mother, along with its unhappy ending, my father had a very serious talk with my mother. He was no harsh stag by all means, yet he was a stag of principles and even though he had allowed by mother many of her fancies, he made clear to her, that she had taught me well enough to be kind towards servants and lower classed fawnlings and that in the future he did not want to see me playing with fawnlings not matching my rank ever again. So, my mother did make sure I only associated myself with other princesses and royals from that day, she also told me I was no longer to play tag with Aedan and the other boy

Fynn ran.  As fast as his legs could carry him, he ran.  And as a werewolf, it was pretty fast, even if he was stuck in his human form.  But he needed to go faster.  His lungs burned, his legs protested as he jumped a fallen log and then dodged around trees.  He’d been running for hours, jumping logs, creeks, sometimes animals.  Twigs snapped at him, slicing through his skin like a knife through butter as he pushed himself even faster.  He flinched when he heard the howls behind him, following him, but knew better than to look back.  It would slow him down too much and he needed speed.  He felt himself pale when a few minutes later, he

I think of you, when it rains. Don’t you remember The fickle breezes Spattering droplets in our faces, How a great gust carried off your Donald Duck umbrella And we chased it, Across the square, across the park, Where it finally caught In the rosebushes. One of the ribs was broken But I laughed And laughed because it made Donald’s tail droop, Until you were laughing too. I don’t know how we didn’t even Notice that my hands were bleeding from the thorns Until we were halfway home. You asked me if it hurt— Of course it did, But it didn’t matter— Besides, I just can’t cry with raindrops running d