Poetry

By Ellie Lyles

“Time is Like a River”

Time is like a river. It continues flowing from days into nights. Slows down but never stops. Forwards, but never backward. Sunday. Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday. Friday. Running faster and faster. The very same water dinosaurs peed, now becomes human necessity. With every drop, trickle, and filled cup, it seems our never ending bucket won’t quite be full enough. Try to get some of that beautiful stream, yet it’s not as reachable as it seems. Tick tock, tick tock. Your time’s up. And yet you didn’t quite get enough in your cup. Enjoy it while it lasts, every precious last drop. For time is like a river and it will not stop.

Short Story

By Taylor Walker

“To Love Her”

“I didn’t think I could love like this.” 

Lexi smiled to herself as her pencil scribbled away on the paper. She was writing out a grocery list: eggs, milk, and cashews were listed. Small doodles of stars were drawn randomly in each line of the small page. 

She was excited to see him when he got home from work, she’d smile and ask how his day was. Then she would suggest they run to the store together, but he would say that he wanted to stay in for the night. He would ask why she wouldn’t just eat leftovers with him. She’d smile again and then agree because she wouldn’t want to ask him what he was really thinking. She always avoided things in her cute little way that she did. 

She stood from where she sat at the island in the kitchen and walked with a skip to the fridge. She grabbed the chocolate milk from the fridge and greedily opened it. Without pouring herself a glass, I watched as she drank from it. 

Her phone rang and she answered with a relaxed tone, “Hi.”

God, I love her so much. 

“No,” her words broke me from my fantasies. “No, he’s not home right now. Sorry Jean. No.”

My mother has called her for the fourth time today, twice when she was still sleeping and another time when she was folding my laundry. 

When she hung up with my mother, Lexi wore a frown on her face. I cursed under my breath, my mother had stolen my Lexi’s smile. Curse her, yes, curse her. 

I watched Lexi look at the clock and then to the back door. She was an independent person, she found herself filling time while I was away. She would paint small little knick knacks for her family. She would read the newspaper I would leave each morning by the coffee pot. She would pet the cats and sleep with them on her chest. 

Cheeto was the orange cat’s name. I think that he might love her more than she does him. With his pestering gaze, willing her to love him until he gets what he wants. 

Sometimes I debate taking that cat outside and letting him loose out in the cold. During the random times I allow myself to think about this I always tend to wonder how the cat would die. Would he freeze or would someone else find him? Would he starve or would he go take shelter in someone else’s garage? 

Lexi began humming, it was a beautiful thing. She was beautiful. She was an angel.  

In our house I could hear it down the hall, her melody whispered through the corridors calling to me from my closet connected to the master bedroom. 

She’s so whole, so beautiful, so holy, so perfect. God, that cat spent more time with her than I did. 

I sat with my hands wrapped around the screen which showed Lexi grabbing a glass from the kitchen table. She sighed in my ears where my earbuds connected to my laptop, my “work” laptop. 

“I love you,” I whispered at the screen. 

I closed my eyes and smiled as if she were sitting here next to me. Why I wouldn’t go out there and be with her myself I never know. There’s always something satisfying about watching Lexi move when I’m not around. How human she is, how she can still function when I’m not around. 

God. 

I leaned in close to the screen and imagined touching her lips with my fingertips. They would be soft and delicate and she would love me. 

I didn’t think I could love like this.