Once upon a time there was a girl living in a tower- No Once upon a time, there was a princess named Rapunzel, and she was doomed to live in a tower for- No. Once upon a time, Rapunzel dreamed she could fly out of her tower and never return, but her parents- My heart somersaults when I feel a gentle tug on my hair. Long blonde locks litter the tower floor, spilling, and now jostling, over the window sill. Nothing else to indicate a visitor had approached though. No hoove

“I don’t know how anyone could do this to me,” you declare as you sip my tea. Your split tongue wraps around the lip of the mug and tips it back. With the other tongue, you confirm, “I am the victim.” The cafe table isn’t conducive for the spikes on your back. You complain to the waitress, who can’t do much, then you decide she’s a bitch once she’s out of earshot. The universe is conspiring against you. Having been inside of your stomach, I’ve learned to tune you out withou

A boy calls for his cat in the wood behind his family home. The sunlight is just starting to fall beneath the treeline, and he worries the cat will be late for feeding time. He calls and calls until long after the word “Mittens” sounds no more like a word than “higgly piggly.” By the time the North star points at his green eye, the tuxedo cat is still nowhere to be found. The boy still has hope, for Mittens has never stayed away from home too long. For three days he’s search

(Celeste Cota Photography) I never remember how numb Maine water feels on my toes. Irrelevant the cloud count or the blazing hot iron sun brought on by these scorching months, the heat breaking open the skin on my back, raising and razing hell from the bone out. 50 degrees is 50 degrees. The tidepools are irrelevant too - misleadingly inviting. Close your eyes and you could picture yourself in Cancun. But no, the Atlantic doesn’t care for your daydreams. My one-piece fee

Found the body of a bird in the grass Beside a 6-story bank downtown An Eastern Phoebe, lying low With a cracked wing and a bent crown A band around its ankle Tells me its death won’t go unknown, Thank god for that little tracking band, Thank god I’m not grieving alone. *Note: this poem is a fictionalized (or should I say poeticized?) version of a story I was told by a bird conservationist, and the unfortunate number of songbirds that are killed each year flying into glas

Perhaps the very first atoms were breathed into existence - not a bang - But an exhale As reflexive and natural as our own. And we prescribe some unknowable noise to this Kaleidoscopic beginning But as I wonder up at the sun and her sister stars, Patiently hovering in my late evening sky, I imagine a quiet start. Perhaps not silent, But whispered A hush As if to sneak up on space and time itself As a stubborn child might creep the stairs after bedtime To risk the treasures o