Introspection

Everything within me died as my relationship ended. I was afraid I would not be able to leave him. I was afraid I had no value as a person, as…

I was 17 when I first heard Liz Phair in the backseat of a boy’s car with my much cooler best friend. We were aimlessly driving around when the boy…

* * * There is a little bird, I don’t remember the name of him, but he skims right over the surface of the ocean.  It must be frightening out…

July, 1967: I am twenty-four years old; my brother is twenty-six. My wife and I are spending a week in California, a break in the intensity of my last year…

Sometimes he wakes up screaming in the middle of the night. Not particularly hungry, sometimes not even wet or poopy. I can identify the times when there is nothing obviously…

I feel like there’s something you need me to say. As if you’ve been waiting years to hear the words only I can speak. Or, maybe this specific combination of…

image: Radiation by Rhonda Fishman * Freddy had wired a radio in the bathroom so that whenever Freddy turned on the light, he had music. He stood in front of…

In 1990, when Halley’s comet was 1.2 billion miles from the sun, an eight-year-old boy heard a song called “Halley Came to Jackson” on a new CD on his parents’…

Why does the sun go on shining? Why does the sea rush to shore? Don’t they know it’s the end of the world? Cause you don’t love me anymore. (Skeeter…

editor’s note: After a long hiatus, Variations on a Theme is returning with quite a fitting story. We almost lost our calloused skin on our proverbial musician’s fingertips but are…

When I was a fifteen, my family had a large unshaded backyard, a self-propelled gas lawnmower, and no men. The mower was an old LawnBoy: greasy and green, with a…

Hunched over shouldering my duffle, just home from college, my dad stops me on the sidewalk. “You look like someone I … could have a deep conversation with,” he stutters,…

The sun reveals the mountains one by one in shades of smoke and slate and coffee grounds. Then it gets to work on their ancient contours, lighting up the spaces…

photo by Unsplash user Jesse Borovnica I hate flying. I hate the window seat, the middle one, and prefer the aisle if given a choice. I was particularly anxious for…