Published Short Stories, Essays, Poetry, and etc.

Open Letter to Beachgoers: Congratulations on 50 Years of Ignoring Obvious Shark Warnings by Bruce the Shark (Yes, I have a name—it’s Bruce. Look it up.) – Weekly Humorist

Dear Squishy Humans, It’s been fifty years. Half a century since I gave summer blockbusters teeth. Since I launched a thousand therapy sessions and got slapped with the blame for every panicked pool noodle incident from Malibu to Miami. Since I dragged a man backwards off a sinking boat and became the poster fish for “Do Not Enter the Water.” And yet, every July, you gather in droves, slather yourselves in coconut-scented marinade, and fling yourselves into my dining room like it’s Shark Week: U...

I Faked Going to the Gym to Escape My Family and Ended Up Spiritually Transformed

The lie left my mouth so smooth and casual, I nearly applauded myself. “I’m heading to the gym,” I said, tying my sneakers with the confidence of someone who once looked at a treadmill in 2017. My toddler was scaling the pantry like a gremlin in Velcro pull-ups. The baby was gnawing on the Roku remote like it was a turkey leg. My husband nodded without making eye contact. He knew better. I left the house like a woman on a mission. Plot twist: I drove straight to Chipotle. I didn’t even blink....

Reviews of New Food: Dr. Pepper Blackberry

It’s 1:17 a.m., and I’m sitting on the floor of my kitchen drinking Dr Pepper Blackberry out of the can like it’s medicine for a heartbreak I haven’t earned yet. I haven’t cried today, but I can feel it coming, crouched behind my molars. This beverage might be the gateway. The label promises “Delightfully Dark. Subtly Sweet,” which, coincidentally, is also how I described myself during a short-lived phase in college when I tried to brand myself as “the mysterious girl who reads Bukowski and wear...

I Deserve to Celebrate Halloween Now Even Though My Life is Unraveling at the Seams

It’s August. Ninety-seven degrees with a heat index of hell itself. The sun is physically aggressive. My thighs are fused to the driver’s seat. The iced coffee in my cup holder has given up on being anything but warm beige sadness.And yet—I feel it.The pull.The whisper.The faint smell of cinnamon broomsticks drifting through the automatic doors of Michaels.Halloween has returned.Halloween has returned. Not in a normal way. Not in the way society agrees on.This is the feral, unhinged Halloween...

Every Other Word an F-Bomb: When Writers Mistake Profanity for Voice

I once participated in a collaborative writing exercise where we each contributed a short passage to build a shared story. The setting was the rural South in the early 1900s: dusty porches, hymnals, women stirring pots while watching the horizon for news. One writer turned in a single page that read like a drunk voicemail. Every other word was “fuck” or “shit.” The voice didn’t match the setting, didn’t reveal character, didn’t move the story. It broke the entire spell.

Children’s TV Shows Ranked By How Much They’ve Ruined My Will To Live

Welcome to my definitive ranking of children’s programming based not on educational value, but on the sheer psychological toll they’ve taken on my adult brain.1. Caillou—Should Be Tried at The Hague I don’t know what war crime this bald Canadian toddler committed to earn a five-season sentence of whining, but here we are. His voice triggers my fight-or-flight. He never learns. He never grows. He just is. A sentient beige void of entitlement. Watching Caillou is like being trapped in a dentist’s...

Just Like Meghan Markle, I, Too, Am a Domestic Goddess While My Toddler Hurls Feces Onto Walls

Like many overcaffeinated, emotionally brittle mothers hiding from their children in the pantry, I was thrilled to see Meghan Markle’s new Netflix show: a lifestyle series where she does incredibly relatable things like garnish microgreens with ethically sourced truffle dust while her children are presumably learning Mandarin in a pastel nursery scented with cedar and subtle desperation. She’s just like us… if “us” means former duchesses turned Etsy-core influencers who froth oat milk in Restorat...

Scenes I Imagined While Bottle-Feeding the Baby at 2 A.M.

At 2 a.m., the world is quiet. Except in my head.The baby is squirming in my arms, sucking on a bottle like it personally offended her. Her tiny fists keep punching the air with righteous fury. She’s got reflux, which means I have roughly twelve minutes before she projectile spits up half the bottle and all of her rage onto my last clean shirt.The toddler is snoring in the next room, clutching a plastic carrot and dreaming of something probably violent and produce-related. My husband is sleeping...

I’m Hosting a Screen-Free, Bug-Friendly, Allergy-Aware, Historically Accurate Colonial Summer Camp

While the rest of you are tossing your children onto iPads and calling it “Camp Netflix,” I’ve decided to take the high road this summer.That’s right. I’m hosting my own fully immersive, emotionally sensitive, screen-free, historically accurate Colonial Summer Camp. Located right in our backyard, adjacent to our composting station and beneath the ethically sourced sun sail I purchased from a woman in Vermont who only works in hand-loomed flax.We’re calling it Camp Colonially Correct. You wouldn’...

Fed to the Gators

The crunching of crispy pine needles beneath my sneakers echoed among the trees. As I trekked through the small, wooded lot beside our home, my older sister, Donna, gripped the chains of her seat swing. She was completely oblivious to her surroundings, which included my random bursts of singing. Her legs dangled above the scuffed grass while she swayed back and forth. The Walkman cassette player clipped to her jeans pocket blared a Stevie Nicks song about white doves. Mom had instructed Donna to watch me that day while she worked yet another twelve-hour shift at Hollywood Memorial Hospital. Donna huffed and whined as usual. She claimed to have more important things to do than watch her obnoxious younger sister. “Mom, I’m almost twelve,” I said as my cheeks reddened from a mixture of anger and embarrassment. “I don’t need a babysitter!”

Chained to the Drift

It’s difficult to devote your life to a family that will never embrace you fully. Especially when your newly acquired family, by law, constantly expects utter devotion. Such was the case for Mrs. Mary Louise Elmwood, a young woman from a highly respected family in northern Alabama. It was a fine match; a proper combination between two well-off esteemed families. Mr. Robert Elmwood, although barely thirty, had already established quite the reputation for himself as a steadfast lawyer in the newly exquisite courthouse in downtown Athens. He was a ruthless lawyer in the courtroom, who never let any criminal walk away without some legal punishment. Some said those reprimands extended outside of those halls, and into the streets of downtown Athens. But Mary Louise didn’t partake in such rumors.

Weary Willie

There is a permanent imprint on memory when smoke infiltrates the senses. I was awaiting my cue with a few other clowns when the foul smell of burning canvas reached me. Dressed in oversized pants that were barely held up by my flimsy suspenders and an unshaven face covered in thick white paint, I called myself Weary Willie, a sad hobo clown with a permanent frown. I always got the short end of the stick, yet I never gave up. An important lesson my pa taught me and one in which I impressed on the children who came to the Ringling Circus. Had I known what was to occur that day, I wouldn’t have bothered plastering on my unhappy persona.

Laying Fallow

Within a small-scale labyrinth of untouched Florida, there exists a modest cemetery hidden by time and nature. The lush, wooded area, which once totally hid this tiny sliver of a sanctuary from view, was mostly chopped up and molded into an everyday American small-town neighborhood. House after house, built side by side, now surrounds what’s left of the natural land and the cemetery. As to why this sacred space was rendered, it's obvious to anyone who’s suffered from death’s unavoidable harvesting. It’s a place for those left behind in the fields, alone, who need to make sense of their loss. Shoddily gluing their million shards of grief into something resembling a whole heart.

EGG HUNT

My hands are hovering above my open eyes. I let out a deep sigh in the hopes that my wife will hurry up so I can get back to the game. I cast a quick glance below at my son, Bobby. I can’t help but smirk at his dogged determination to keep his tiny hands pressed firmly against his closed eyelids. A wicker basket filled with artificial green Easter grass hangs from the bend of his right elbow. “No peeking!” My wife’s giggles echo throughout our house. Her sneakers squeak against the tiled floor

Are You My Mother?

“But in my postpartum life on a rainy December evening, compassion flowed into the recesses of my soul.” Struggling with a newfound role, a mother ponders how giving life has awakened her empathy towards the suffering, and allowed a realization of what true love is… “Please don’t be dead,” I said, as I scampered towards the frail body resting by the side of the road. Having just swerved into a sharp U-turn, my tires squealed in protest as I slammed on the brakes. I hoped it wasn’t too late....

Nibbles

Yuck! I’m so sick of these bland, grainy power bars. Yet I continue to gnaw away, bit by bit, hoping the flavor will somehow become tolerable. My best friend, Tiff, promises these are good for my tummy. Her smile beams down upon me whenever she comes home from the grocery store with the latest health food craze. Placebos disguised as crunch bars, which supposedly prolong my life. I’m a sucker for wanting to see Tiff happy, so I oblige her fountain of youth schemes. Tiff is the sweetest girl I know, which is ironic because her stepdad, Jack, is a huge jerk. He enjoys telling Tiff, constantly, that he’s going to “feed” me to the neighbors’ hungry dogs. Why? It’s like he spins the Wheel of Misfortune, only every winning turn equals terrorizing an innocent girl: a B Minus packed report card, not keeping her room clean to his militaristic standards, or for the plain fact that Tiff is “soft” for taking me in and caring for me when I was orphaned. “My home isn’t an orphanage, Tiffany,” or “you’re so sensitive, Tiffany, the world’s going to eat you alive,” are common phrases.
Load More Articles