Author: Jocelyn

There's this game put out by the American Girl company called "300 Wishes"--I really like playing it because then I get to marvel, "Wow, it's like I'm a real live American girl who has 300 wishes, and that doesn't suck, especially compared to being a dead one with none."

Titties

I push through the door — it’s late, but the massive cowboy hat on the roof glows red — and step into something more like a night club than an Arby’s. Steady, throbbing beats pulse across the rafters of the dim dining room, threading through stacks of waxed cups, snapping plastic straws with reverb. This… Continue reading Titties

Flippin’ Pages

To buy a piece of furniture is to force lines and edges around amorphous aspiration. Take the blue chair that lives next to the side table we inherited when Byron’s grandparents moved into independent, then assisted, living in the early aughts. It smacks of the ’90s, that side table does, now host to coasters, cheaters,… Continue reading Flippin’ Pages

Guard

Calista Bergerson is twenty years old, a full-time college student who also works twenty-five hours a week. If that weren’t enough, she’s also a member of the Army National Guard under a “six-by-two contract” (actively in the Guard and going to drills for six years; then, for an additional two years, she will still be… Continue reading Guard

Blue

“And I’ll meet you at our usual place,” Helen said by way of wrap-up, as she did every time we finished planning an outing.  The first time she said it, I squealed. “I love that we have a ‘usual place’! I’ve only been in Belarus for a few weeks, and already I not only have a friend, but we even have… Continue reading Blue

The Dress

While the fall semester of 2020 was widely and rightly hailed as crushing for both teachers and students, it also presented glories. For me, one glory was a 17-year-old student named Miranda who enrolled in my Writing for Social Media class. Every week, I grinned at my screen as I read her work; the character… Continue reading The Dress

Inbox

6:43 p.m.  I am sorry to bring this up, but I noticed the paper was due yesterday and not Sunday. I finished the paper prior to the rough draft phase, I have been waiting to turn it in. I made the inept decision to wait until Sunday to turn it in. I apologize for my lack… Continue reading Inbox

There

The back of my head touched shoulder blades as I squinted into the sun, up the ladder rungs to the sky. One, two, three, four, five, six — nope, too high, back down again — five, four, three, two, one. I wanted to get to the top of the shiny metal slide, but not if… Continue reading There

Published
Categorized as On My Mind

Safe

During savasana, there is meditation, tonight “loving kindness.” First, we were prompted to generate a sensation of safety in our bodies. The teacher urged us to picture someone or some place where we feel secure and say to ourselves, in brains and in cells, “May I feel safe.” After that, we worked through “May I… Continue reading Safe

Melted

The light changes. A cover has opened, slit of sun beaming into the darkness, a ha-ha neiner-neiner taunt transmitted from the world of wind and spit. In the quick second between dandelion shaft blinking back to onyx, a gentle violence occurs, crinkling followed by thump. A book has been returned. *** With that thump, the… Continue reading Melted

Covid Diaries: Mice

May 19th Out walking this afternoon, I received a message from my sister that made me cry. As an Early Childhood teacher, she’s been missing her wee students these past months, despairing over any meaningful education happening through technology: So, I had to go close down my classroom the other day. I was so afraid… Continue reading Covid Diaries: Mice