Posts tagged “Melissa Mathies,”

Roads: Going Home

Posted on March 25, 2015

College Road By Jennah Kelley This one’s name is Kaylee. White 2001 Buick LeSabre, two thousand dollars’ worth of beautiful my aunt Dena helped me buy. I got her when my ‘94 Ford Explorer, Leviathan, kicked while delivering pizzas last summer. Only just got her back to the Hut parking lot before one final shudder and she died. Levi was a graduation present from my mother so I could go to college in Bemidji without her worrying about Candy, the ’98 Ford Escort I used to drive, breaking down for my many required trips home to see her and two of my sisters. Candy got great gas mileage, and she was the one who took me on my first trip to Bemidji. I left…

Categories: Flash Nonfiction

Tagged: Daniel Boessel,, Jennah Kelley,, Melissa Mathies,

Mom

Posted on February 23, 2015

By Melissa Mathies My mom grew up in a home with an alcoholic father and a mother who didn’t seem to care what happened to her daughters. My mom would stay out late and come home to her father passed out on the couch, an empty bottle of vodka, and ashes and butts of cigarettes on the floor next to him. Once he sold her class ring to buy the alcohol he needed, and her mother just sat by and watched it happen as she sipped on her glass of wine. He would do that—pawn jewelry to further his bad habit, a habit that killed him sooner rather than later. The only advice her father ever gave her was, “Leopards never change their spots.”…

Categories: Nonfiction

Tagged: Melissa Mathies,

Paint Samples

Posted on April 17, 2014

Prose poems and vignettes inspired by paint samples and their names. Planetarium By Zach Barnes I remember sitting with my grandfather, looking up at the starry ceiling while the presenter talked. My grandfather would lean over and point out things to me, showing me nebula, galaxies and black holes represented by twinkling lights, or the lack of. But I wasn’t really listening. I wasn’t even in the theater. I was out there already. Floating weightless, looking out the viewport. Eating a freeze-dried ice cream sandwich my grandfather bought me, sweet but crispy, the new texture interesting and repulsing me at the same time. Touching the viewport window and imagining the cold of interstellar space chilling my hand. Turning as the radio squawks and…

Categories: Poetry

Tagged: Caitlyn Otto,, Melissa Mathies,, Zach Barnes,

Fresh

Posted on April 3, 2014

By Melissa Mathies I walked away quickly, trying to hide the tears that were gathering in my eyes. Traitors, I thought, as I hastily wiped away the few that escaped. As I opened my car door, I looked back and waved goodbye to my brother and sisters, who stood in front of the cabin. I couldn’t believe I was doing this. My stomach protested as my anxiety showed itself. I kept chanting to myself, I can do this, I can do this. I hit the gas and drove away from the comfortable life I had with my family to start my own adventure, to prove that I could do what no one really thought I could do. With my parents following me, I…

Categories: Nonfiction

Tagged: Melissa Mathies,