"A bell dings, dings, dings and I move out of the way, leaning against the wall, in the slip stream of a cyclist. Too fast for me, people sprinting by.
"Run, run, as fast as you can. You can't catch me, I'm the ginger bread man." Someone behind me, yells.
I turn to look. He slows down. "I ran from the baker and his wife too. You'll never catch me, ha ha, not you."
He stops and leans on the wall next to me. I breathe his skin, freshly baked, just out of the oven. Such a cocky man. I turn and in two bites, I eat his head, his black currant eyes. I eat his arms and his legs. Seagulls dive, wailing, squawking. They peck and gobble until there is nothing left.
I continue to walk my wobbling path. Revenge is ginger. Revenge is sweet."
Originally written by Gaele Sobott
The night's over. I'm giddy with whisky, music and the smell of testosterone. I wheel towards the exit, followed closely by my male phalanx.
"Must give good head" snarls one of the women.
"How else would you explain all those blokes hangin round?" says another.
"Living proof that cripples can be cunts" says the original woman.
I turn towards them. They join forces, the combined malice palpable as they attempt to stare me down. Intimidate me.
"Enjoy your night ladies" I say, smiling sweetly.
Their makeup not so perfect anymore as alcohol and bile smear their lipstick. They go as a gaggle to the restroom to tidy up then head to a bar where they'll be gorgeous and get white girl drunk. They might pick up but will more likely end up holding each other's hair as they vomit multi coloured drinks and failure.
I will lie in bed and smile.
Originally written by Gayle Kennedy
Finally, I am alone, laying here in my little paper boat. The sun has gone down and the whole world is like a single dark drop of ink, I'm like the tiny fleck of reflected light.
Although alone, there are things I need to tell.
I go to write on the surface of my boat, but the paper is no longer the smooth, clean page it once was. Any ink would catch in its lumps and bumps.
I close my eyes. The waves underneath me are the only sound. I listen. It's like a soothing voice, which envelops me in a hum.
I sing back to the waves, my voice floats across them.
"Will I ever be free?"
"Will it ever end?"
When I open my eyes, stars have gathered above me reflecting back my stories. If others look up from where they lay, will they understand?
Originally written by Pony Horseman
The yearning to be water is upon me.
I am looking at a road ahead, a path towards and towards, and I see a river. Moving closer to an edge, it’s as if everything sings with a greater clarity. There is an all-encompassing stream of light, expanding and contracting, mimicking water. Surely, I have arrived.
I am gripped by a voice outside of time, moving me forwards to a new reference point. Listening, I am sliding through air, slowly losing definition. Everything turns increasingly to echo. The very substance of the world becomes more manageable, more charged yet imbued with a sense of peace and wholeness.
All is unbroken, undamaged; as if the procession of matter across infinity were connected and resolved in a combination of hydrogen and oxygen in which the universe and everything in it were in a state of grace… and I am home.
Originally written by Colin Hambrook
The yellow dog and these black eyes. It's a supernatural force of nature. Guided by uncertain coordinates that lie in the stars, it roams looking for weak flesh searching for stone caves.
The disrobed weak shadow crawling out to the edge of night where the world half opens its stone circle. A half-opened world where I forgive night for day, where I want to come to die at dawn and be reborn at dusk and in the encircled darkness of the tomb become the "I" I was meant to be and will be again.
Yet at the final leg of the crawl, the entrance in sight, my spirit encounters this yellow dog and its black eyes. It is monumental as it sits up on its hind-legs, blocking my entry and locking me in. I stare at it with silent reverence. A moment without weight. The moment before its leap. The moment before it bestows faith. No matter how long it must lick, faith that I can be alive to life as I am, no matter my form.
Originally written by Michele Saint-Yves