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“were all here pregaming. at my dads apt. Wher the duck are u.”

No one answered. I turned to his parents. My stomach felt on fire.

He grew a forest of candles and cried when it succumbed to wildfire.

It begins on the sunny morning of November 14, 1960.

Anytime I drifted off I wished to wake up against a cold, silent body.

It’s a mistake to be here, he thinks, but he doesn’t turn around.

When I meet his gaze, he’s frowning, a hint of anger flashing in his eyes. When saw the fury in his eyes, I thought he was going to kill him.

They tried to kill us, my sisters, mother, and me; I still have the scars.

This is not America! It is not the America I grew up in, it’s
a joke.

I am drawn to these victims because I was there the night they were killed.

“Ki-Tae the famous pastor,” Jae says to her. “Can you believe life.”

Of late a graduate student named Cassius has joined our ranks.

The division of the community had become more marked than ever.

There in the trees, swinging from branch to branch, they saw Pete.

It was as if my dead husband was flowing within me now, like blood.

We buy a bag of cockles and three crabs, all female, sweet with egg.

He’s got a nice, deep kind of voice. He doesn’t sound redneck at all.

“I can’t die, I don’t want to die, I love life,” Prince Andrei thought.

You don’t feel anything when they cut you, not at first, just the blood.

He studies their mannerisms, looking for clues to the psycho spirit.

In exchange for our labor, we would each be given a new set of clothes.

It had taken Thursdale seven years to form this fine talent.

The students usually didn’t look up to see who was serving them.

Some people you come across you come to love. He was one of them.

Despite seeing the other knockoffs, I hoped my dress would be perfect.

More and more whiskey was required to knock out the elephant.

Here’s the part where you pledge devotion until death, I told myself.

We looked at each other beneath a London sky, on a Zeppelin night.

Joanna Walsh