Spoiled
As the sun soars, heat blots out birdsong, the scratchy call of insects, and soon there’s nothing but the tramp of our boots across the parched earth.
If Party Wolf Jumps
All of which is to say when you remember Baker now it’s best to remember him with the wolf mask on, and if you remember the weeks you spent dating his older sister, remember only the good parts and the parts that make you look good.
Wait for Me
I might spend five minutes yelling into the phone, "It's me, Mamina! Your Granddaughter!" And I will hear, "Who? Who?" And I'll try and try again to no avail and think she can't hear me anymore, she can't see me anymore.
And From His Grave a Rose
We drank hot black Turkish coffee, quashing our grimaces, pretending our tastes had changed.
for the love of lowly things (for Mary)
In December, it is the season of Advent in the church calendar, and in the sanctuary, large-scale artwork of a pregnant belly adorns the stage. I wonder at the quiet fury and joy of Mary, her declaration in the Magnificat that God has “filled the hungry and sent the rich away empty.”
Origin Story
I understand the urge to do it up, up up and away, until you get so far gone and high the only place to come back down is on some open stretch of highway.
My Condolences
The girl, whose name I never learned, didn’t die before the song was over, and we never saw her again.
The Ducks in Winter
I even envy my old life now, my own youth, so I start rearranging the furniture to make the past come back, or some of it.
Not Always the Hero
It is difficult to realize that someone you respect and care for understands you and people that look like you as self-centered and reactionary because you demand inalienable rights.
Beneath a Vacant Sky
Marla is convinced that if the moon hadn’t exploded, Austin would’ve kissed her.
Dream Journal
I’m a little girl with short hair again, but I can no longer slip back into the silent games she used to play.
Chalisa (or Hanuman Knows All About it)
I tell myself Hanuman knows all about this sickness, that he wants me hear it that way, to pray for an end to this scourge.
Small Things with Great Love
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The Pool Party
She knew she wasn’t supposed to see the kiss or the way the dark-haired boy stroked Josh’s back. And yet she did see.
News
No one talks of these fights later. No one talks of anything when my mother is around, and no one talks of her when she isn’t.
The Caterpillar Plant
He squatted down, studying the way their bodies would scrunch together and expand outwards with each step. He knew they’d be butterflies but couldn’t see how.
The Wasted Things
When I find the maggot-fetus on the floor of our shower, I feel intensely fearful that our skin is something that is almost all gone, almost all out;
Trumpet Joy
Now, if it’s cold or raining, my son opens his bedroom window and points his horn outward to make certain Mr. Wei can hear.
Your Grandmother's Antique
Your grandmother, whose mouth you know so well, once told you the body will listen when the earth speaks.
Thirsty
At his room next morning they said, “He wanted us to tell you he was always thirsty. Now what do you figure that’s about?”
Horizon
The snow is thick, alive and panting, a roaring wall of white in the space between my father and me.
Sign of the Times
Openings are one part mystery, one part miracle. Who’s to say when they will occur, or what will result.
Given Light and a Mother Who Was Always Dying in Secret
Dragonflies can tell the real stars from glint on lake-surface. They fly to lesser suns, their wings open to duty, dipping to mire.
Rewriting History
It’s hot, air thick / as maple syrup, and mosquitos feast / on any flesh they find. Our bites bleed / blue as we lie in the grass
On bee-ing free: racial justice, surviving apocalypse, and paying attention
White supremacy doesn’t just uphold police brutality and mass incarceration, migrant detention and colonial extraction on Native land; it’s death-dealing and ordinary and wants to last forever.
The Wind
Our parents rode in the enclosed cabin of our classic white Ford truck. They were talking but we couldn’t hear them. They never looked back to see us and we knew there was no room for us up in that sweetly, quiet cab.
To Remember A Stranger
The more people I have met, the closer I have been to suffering. Many times, this makes me want to not meet more people, and, in fact, un-meet people, like a girl in a video I resent having seen or a boy in a gas station at which I didn’t have to stop.
Writer's Habits: The Importance of Non-Writing Writing
...if you saw me by the side of the road, perhaps taking a photo with my phone of some wild grapes, you wouldn’t think I’m writing, but I am—more non-writing writing.
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The Waking is an online literary magazine and a part of the Ruminate creative community that houses high-quality literary writing about what it’s like to be human. We are interested in short-form prose and image-text hybrid work. This art can be beautiful, it can be strange, we just ask that it feels true.