I’d already missed two periods before I went to Planned Parenthood in Berkeley. I knew the result before a woman asked if I wanted counseling. She had a lovely voice. “I always say, you’re the one to ask the questions of yourself. Who do you see in yourself, Gina, what do you want?” I answered that I was thirty-five, unmarried, and didn’t know what I wanted. “But my hormones aren’t neutral,” I laughed. “They’re saying yes but I just don’t know.” She asked about my circumstances. “The father is not committed but I’d like him … Continue reading Distances by Barbara Baer →
Let me tell you uncomfortable I am with silence. I am handcuffed to a joke I can’t tell. Two crows are where my lungs should be. My exhales are the shape of birds. This is serious business. This is an average Tuesday. Finger in the light socket. Fork in the garbage disposal. Recycling bin blown over by the wind. The week’s detritus spread out for all the neighbors to see. I’m hungry but all my knives are too dull to cut anything. The voice coach said sing from your diaphragm. Someday I’ll have an office … Continue reading Same River, Different Day by Patrick Meeds →
When photographer Scott Smith isn’t observing the world, he’s building one from scratch. Standing in his well-ordered studio at Charlottesville’s McGuffey Art Center, Scott Smith muses over a framed print of one of his recent photographs. Created in the studio with small lights and unremarkable materials that include metal foil and the discarded label from a bottle of Gatorade, but rendered in dramatic black-and-white, the image is highly suggestive of a landscape, with a strong horizon line dividing an illusory mountain from its apparent reflection in water. Smith recently included the piece in a one-person … Continue reading The Artful Constructs of Scott F. Smith by Russell Hart →
My memories of the time when my parents and I lived in a renovated gristmill are of course dim—I had only been two when we moved there and four when we left—but they are my first memories, and they are filled with tone. I remember the narrowness of the house, with two rooms on each of its three floors, and the oldness, darkness, and coolness of its log interior. I remember my mother’s shiny stainless-steel percolator in the basement kitchen, and its swish-and-gurgle pattern that sounded like labored breathing. I remember the kitchen stool, which … Continue reading Talking to Toads by Tutt Stapp-McKiernan →
…………………………………………………….A poem is never finished, only abandoned …………………………………………………………..–Paul Valery In a downtown daze I trolled among towers reeking of success, rising proudly into the sky, and between them found an alley of orphans, all my incomplete gestures, children who made and dismayed me, never found a home in my heart. They fled the disregard to which I condemned them, banded together, unselfishly shared their pain and painkillers, and admired each others deformities. They tattooed my ink into their fists and waited, one-eyed and one-armed, (the eye full of spite, the arm heavily armed), hoping that … Continue reading Reckless Abandon by Dudley Stone →
Streetlight Voices: Short Fiction & Memoir · Thank You For Calling by Margaret Watson Podcast: “Thank you for Calling” is a story about endings. A fictional story performed by Jennifer Sims. Read the story online: “Thank you for Calling” by Margaret Watson Jennifer Sims is an actor and voice over artist who has voiced hundreds of projects across all genres. After attending the American Academy of Dramatic Arts she wandered into a career in advertising. She worked as an ad agency producer for ten years before she found her way back to her creative path … Continue reading Thank you for Calling by Margaret Watson →
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