Scroll down for my poem.
Author: ReiAsh
The Mistake
A colorful spectrum of lights sprang and sprinted across the dance floor. Swinging bodies and smiling faces shown with every flash of bright light. Katie, the Senso-Hair, was dancing in the middle of the crowd, her eight-foot, black locks swirling above their heads like it had a life of its own, moving to the beat…
Venetian Blinds
The sun, that sharp orb of light, never sets this time of year. I miss the darkness, the sacred sprinkles of light in the sky, stars in the vast openness of space. With the ocean fully explored, mapped, and harvested for energy, space is the last frontier, but I’d rather look at it than be…
After-School Reprieve
Traveling as a child on the mini yellow bus from the magnet school to the community center was always a breath of anticipation for me. The bus seats were green pleather, splattered with cuts and tears here and there. The backs of the seats stood up so straight they lacked comfort. The bus ride was…
Reflective Winds
The winds rushed in every direction. The flickers of light through the grave curtain of grey were few and far between, glaring out from the lighthouse a mile down the beach. Edgar’s arms were crossed at his chest like a mummy, and he stood in the sand, tied to a tree, expecting the worst. His…
One Hemlock Life
The hemlocks are chasing me down the street. I turn the corner, climb the wall, and hide under the archway between two buildings, in the shadows. Or, should I say, the other hemlocks. I haven’t been one for very long, but I feel both invigorated and drained. I feel a fire flowing in my veins…
Thriving Community Leader, Miss Arizona 1985, Shares Her Surprising Past
You’d be surprised to learn that Christianne Acosta grew up with a stepmother from a fairytale.
Shards of History
When the war was over, she pulled up the floorboard, dug the vase back up, and showed it to her husband and children. They knew it had been in the family for six generations. The painted porcelain was done by Jean-Jacques Bachelier. It had survived through the War of the First Coalition, War of the Sixth Coalition, the Hundred Days between France and the Netherlands, and now the Great War. Its beauty still in tact.
A Day In The Life
… Her room was filled with all the things I would want in my own, if I had a room. It took all the breath I had left for the day to walk up the six flights to Lela’s apartment. Situated a few blocks from the yellow beach, her windowsills were speckled in shells, incense and statues of animals. On one wall hung a tapestry with a mandala. On another wall hung a giant floral anatomy poster, complete with a magnetic wooden frame that mimicked schoolhouse pull-down charts. Her bed had the soft, cooling linen that one only finds in a room like hers— creamy in every sense of the word: texture, color, and scent. Each item in her room was perfectly spaced out from the others, like a well-designed landscape. I felt entirely out of place there, wearing my ripped jeans, faded t-shirt and boots that were starting to come apart at the seams. My hiking pack was covered in dirt. My hair was a little messy, and mousy brown, and my skin was excessively tan, from being outside all the time.
Reflective Winds
The winds rushed in every direction. The flickers of light through the grave curtain of grey were few and far between, glaring out from the lighthouse a mile down the beach. Edgar’s arms were crossed at his chest like a mummy, and he stood in the sand, tied to a tree, expecting the worst. His thin black pin-stripe suit barely retained any heat, so he shivered in the cold of this stormy morning. His white shirt was crumpled and dirty from sleeping in the sand the night before. He looked ragged—a splayed version of his usual self. His black tie hung halfway out of his pants pocket—he had the intelligence to at least remove it from his neck so it wouldn’t flap him in the face.