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In my opinion I feel that this poetry piece was a personal story from the author. The details and comparisons do a very good job of helping the reader create a visual in their mind. However, this was my least favorite piece because I did not like reading this writing style.

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Above us, stars. Beneath us, constellations.
Five billion miles away, a galaxy dies
like a snowflake falling on water. Below us,
some farmer, feeling the chill of that distant death,
snaps on his yard light, drawing his sheds and barn
back into the little system of his care.
All night, the cities, like shimmering novas,
tug with bright streets at lonely lights like
his.

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Above us, stars. Beneath us, constellations. Five billion miles away, a galaxy dies like a snowflake falling on water. Below us, some farmer, feeling the chill of that distant death, snaps on his yard light, drawing his sheds and barn back into the little system of his care.

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I believe the author chose a 'life lesson' way of writing. I feel that this was a more uplifting piece of writing.

My favorite line was: "you have all you need to be a hero don't save the world, save yourself"

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I am sick of writing this poem
but bring the boy. his new name

his same old body. ordinary, black
dead thing. bring him & we will mourn
until we forget what we are mourning

& isn't that what being black is about?
not the joy of it, but the feeling

you get when you are looking
at your child, turn your head,
then, poof, no more child.

that feeling. that's black.

\\

think: once, a white girl

was kidnapped & that's the Trojan war.

later, up the block, Troy got shot
& that was Tuesday. are we not worthy

of a city of ash? of 1000 ships
launched because we are missed?

always, something deserves to be burned.
it's never the right thing now a days.

I demand a war to bring the dead boy back
no matter what his name is this time.

I at least demand a song. a song will do just fine.

\\

look at what the lord has made.
above Missouri, sweet smoke.

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I am sick of writing this poembut bring the boy. his new name his same old body. ordinary, blackdead thing. bring him & we will mournuntil we forget what we are mourning & isn't that what being black is about?not the joy of it, but the feeling you get when you are lookingat your child, turn your head,then, poof, no more child.

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I am not sure of theme of this would be, but it really captured my attention and made think/ reflect while I was reading it. This piece of poetry writing was my personal favorite.

My favorite part/line was: "wouldn't you hope for a more leisurely review, an invisible hand turning the pages of an album of photographs..."
Im not sure why that line stuck out to me so much, but it stuck out to me because it was something I could really picture in my mind.

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The Art of Drowning by Billy Collins | Poetry Magazine

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October 1991 | A. Ammons, Georgi Belev, T. Broughton, Billy Collins, Steven Cramer, Daniela Crâsnaru, Alice Friman, William Greenway, Jeffrey Harrison, Daniel Langton, Robert Levy, Jayanta Mahapatra, Martial, William Matthews, Sandra McPherson, Mary Oliver, Alice Fulton

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I come from the fire city. by Eve L. Ewing

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I come from the fire city. by Eve L. Ewing

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This poetry was writing as a story told by the writer while she drove through “her” city and what she saw while she traveled through.
That was the interpretation that I got from this writing. This was a semi difficult reading for me to follow but I think that is what she was trying to get across here.
Favorite line: / the fire city children watch with their fingers in their mouths / to savor the flaming hots or hot flamins or hot crunchy curls or hot chips /

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looking over the plums, one by one remembering my face. he smiled.
lifting each to his eyes and
turning it slowly, a little earth,
checking the smooth skin for pockmarks
and rot, or signs of unkind days or people,
then sliding them gently into the plastic.
whistling softly, reaching with a slim, woolen arm
into the cart, he first balanced them over the wire
before realizing the danger of bruising
and lifting them back out, cradling them
in the crook of his elbow until
something harder could take that bottom space.
I knew him from his hat, one of those
fine porkpie numbers they used to sell
on Roosevelt Road. it had lost its feather but
he had carefully folded a dollar bill
and slid it between the ribbon and the felt
and it stood at attention. he wore his money.
upright and strong, he was already to the checkout
by the time I caught up with him. I called out his name
and he spun like a dancer, candy bar in hand,
looked at me quizzically for a moment before

hello young lady
hello, so chilly today
should have worn my warm coat like you
yes so cool for August in Chicago
how are things going for you
oh he sighed and put the candy on the belt
well it goes, it goes.

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i come from the fire city / fire came and licked up our houses, lapped them up like they were nothing / drank them like the last dribbling water from a concrete fountain / the spigot is too hot to touch with your lips be careful / fire kissed us

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This story was very descriptive and keeps the readers interest the whole time. Again, I had a heard time following what this author was attempting to interpret here through her reading. It was very descriptive and I believe the entirety of this writing was her trying to describe the Lynx.

I did not like the line: "Lynx, the only possible reply though I'd never seen one".

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I'm no moaning bluet, mountable
linnet, mumbling nun. I'm
tangible, I'm gin. Able to molt
in toto, to limn. I'm blame and angle, I'm
lumbago, an oblate mug gone notable,
not glum. I'm a tabu tuba mogul, I'm motile,
I'm nimble. No gab ennui, no bagel bun-boat: I'm one
big mega-ton bolt able to bail
men out. Gluten iamb. Male bong unit.
I'm a genial bum, mental obi, genital
montage. I'm Agent Limbo, my blunt bio
an amulet, an enigma. Omit elan. Omit bingo.
Alien mangle, I'm glib lingo. Untangle me,
tangelo. But I'm no angel.

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I'm no moaning bluet, mountablelinnet, mumbling nun. I'mtangible, I'm gin. Able to moltin toto, to limn. I'm blame and angle, I'mlumbago, an oblate mug gone notable,not glum. I'm a tabu tuba mogul, I'm motile,I'm nimble. No gab ennui, no bagel bun-boat: I'm onebig mega-ton bolt able to bailmen out. Gluten iamb.

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I believe that Natalie Lima chose a point of view and a life lesson genre approach when she wrote this Flash piece. She does an excellent job of presenting a clear timeline, with crucial details that help the reader visualize this story in their minds, or at least that was my takeaway from this.

The choice of language was language and detail is the reason that this was my second favorite piece of writing. She is the main character and does a great job with giving the reader details and a brief background on the other characters/people in her life.

I believe Natalie Lima does a great job of capturing the reader's attention through writing about the sacrifices and life experiences that her and her Mom went through to get her where she is.

In my opinion the line that was really well written was:

“In November, you ace your film studies midterm and strut back to your dorm in your new North Face jacket and Uggs, purchased with the $400 your mom sent after pawning her earrings. She wanted you to be ready for the cold.”

This line is a well written example of one of the many sacrifices that parents for their children. It is a true display of what a parent will do to give their child the things that  “everyone else has”.

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1.

You are sitting on the couch that doubles as your bed when your mami hands you the envelope marked THIS IS THE BIG ONE. You're eighteen, and here is the college acceptance letter you've been waiting for, the one from your dream school in Chicago.

Over 1,300 miles south-to Hialeah, Florida-this letter traveled to glisten in your hands, with flattering phrases like: You were one of thousands of applicants and You're the crème de la crème. Your mami hugs you hard in her bleach-stained uniform, and you scream together, bouncing up and down like ping-pong balls for almost an hour. You'll finally see snow.

2.

The next day you sign the paperwork in your best cursive and slip it carefully into an envelope, as if it's a winning lottery ticket. When you toss it into the mailbox, you think: This is too good to be true.

Over the summer, you buy a thick winter hat and gather all the books you own, from Harry Potter to Beloved. Each is a talisman, and you pack them gently into a suitcase, one by one. The day of your flight, your mami sobs uncontrollably at the airport, but you don't cry at all.

You don't cry because you've earned this. Because you're poor, and you're Latin, and your dad ran off with the neighbor, yet you still killed it on the SAT-you are clearly destined for greatness. You don't cry because you are dying to leave your barrio, dying to leave that couch you sleep on. Because even though it's scary, you know this fancy school is where you were always meant to be.

3.

When you move into your dorm, conversation is easier than you expected. You can talk about European literature and art history, can name-drop every dead virtuoso who ever picked up a quill or a paintbrush; you can quote Chaucer and Dante, can easily recount the life stories-every tiny detail-about Gauguin, Van Gogh, Cézanne, Seurat, and Pissarro. Your opener-"Did you know Gauguin briefly lived with Van Gogh in a tiny house in the South of France?"-proves you belong.

In November, you ace your film studies midterm and strut back to your dorm in your new North Face jacket and Uggs, purchased with the $400 your mom sent after pawning her earrings. She wanted you to be ready for the cold.

On the way up to your floor, you notice the indentations on each step and think about all the feet that have climbed them, all the winter boots, so much snow to prepare for. You slink towards the bathroom and, as you get closer, you hear some rumbling from a dorm room nearby. You recognize the high-pitched voice of the cello-player from Greenwich seeping out of a cracked door: "You guys know what's really surprising? That Natalie girl-the one from Miami-is super smart. I didn't expect that at all."

As you listen a few feet away, you wait for the rebuff, for someone to ask: But what makes you say that about her? But it never comes, no pushback at all. Instead you hear a chorus of: "Yeah, what a surprise."

You tiptoe back to your room, W hat. A. Surprise echoing in your head.

4.

In high school, you once had a dream about college. Autumn leaves snapped beneath your feet, and ripped, shirtless frat guys threw frisbees around the sorority quad. You swam in the chlorinated water of a campus pool nearby. Your round body-the circumference of which felt like the entire world itself-always seemed destined to float, to rise above the surface. What you remember most from that dream, though, is that you were surrounded by people. Your new friends all floating alongside you, freely, limbs spread like stars.

5.

The inside of your dorm room is muggy when you plop onto your bed. The heat suffocates your skin, so you unzip your North Face and throw it across the room. It lands on your roommate's desk, almost knocks over her laptop. You want to get up and grab the jacket but your body can't seem to move. You sit still, sinking into the mattress, trying to remember what it felt like to float.

Eventually, you turn and glance out the window. The sky is gray, almost white. You've read about this, about this exact moment: the turning of seasons, the freezing of water vapor, ice particles.

It's finally starting to snow.
__

Natalie Lima, a 2016 PEN America Emerging Voices Fellow and VONA/Voices alum, is an MFA candidate in creative nonfiction at the University of Arizona. Her essays and fiction have been published or are forthcoming in Longreads, Guernica, Catapult, The Offing, and elsewhere. She is currently writing a memoir-in-essays about the absurdities of living in a body. To hear her messy thoughts, find her on Twitter @NatalieLima09.

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1. You are sitting on the couch that doubles as your bed when your mami hands you the envelope marked THIS IS THE BIG ONE. You're eighteen, and here is the college acceptance letter you've been waiting for, the one from your dream school in Chicago.

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Roxane Gay narrates her own story in a very clear timeline. She does an excellent job of sharing her life lessons she learned through being a black woman in predominantly white areas. She gave very illustrated examples of times that she was judged by the color of her skin.

The main character in this writing is herself and she gives detailed language describing how the other characters (people she encountered) judged her based on the color of her skin.

The author catches the attention of the reader by telling her own real story that others can relate to when they have been judged by their appearances.

In my opinions the line that was well very well written was:

“In my more generous moments, I tried to believe the locals were using anger to mask their fear of living in a dying town in a changing world.”

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I spent five years in Michigan's Upper Peninsula-a place I didn't even know existed until I moved there to attend graduate school. I lived in a town of four thousand people. The next town over, over the portage bridge, had seven thousand people. In my town, the street signs were in both English and Finnish because the town had the highest concentration of Finns outside of Finland. We were so far north that my blackness was more curiosity than threat. I was a woman out of place but I did not always feel unsafe. There were the abandoned copper mines and the vast majesty of Lake Superior and so much forest cloaking everything. During fall, deer hunting, so much venison. The winters were endless, snow in unfathomable quantities, the aching whine of snowmobiles. There was loneliness. There were my friends, who made the isolation bearable. There was a man who made everything beautiful. What I cannot forget is my landlady, who rented my apartment to me over the phone and who, when she first met me, told me I didn't sound like a colored girl.

In rural Illinois, I lived in a town surrounded by cornfields, in an apartment complex next to an open meadow, the site of ambition thwarted when the developer who built the complex ran out of money. The meadow was wide and green, bordered by trees. In the fall, I often saw a family of deer galloping across the field. They reminded me of Michigan. Especially early on, they made me think, I want to go home, and I would startle, that my heart, my body, considered such an unexpected place home. The man didn't follow. The man didn't understand why I would not, could not raise brown children in the only place he had ever called home. There was more to it, but there was also that. At the end of every summer, a farmer threshed the meadow and hauled the hay away. I stood on my balcony and watched as he worked, methodically, making the land useful. I had a job, I kept telling myself. At least I had a job. This town was bigger. I nurtured a very small dream-to live in a place where I could get my hair done-without knowing if that dream would ever come true. There was a Starbucks, though not much else. There was loneliness. There were a few very, very unsuitable men who made everything ugly. We were three hours from Chicago so my blackness was less of a curiosity, more of a threat. And there were the black students on campus, the nerve of them, daring to pursue higher education. In the local newspaper, residents wrote angry letters about a new criminal element-the scourge of youthful black ambition, black joy. In my more generous moments, I tried to believe the locals were using anger to mask their fear of living in a dying town in a changing world.

Four years later, I moved to Central Indiana, a much bigger town, a small city really. In the first weeks, I was racially profiled in an electronics store. Living here never got better though local acquaintances often tried to tell me, in different ways, "Not all Hoosiers," when I lamented how uncomfortable and unhappy I was, I am. There is loneliness. The confederacy is, inexplicably, alive and well here. There is a man who drives around in an imposing black pickup truck with white supremacist flags flying from the rear. My dental hygienist thinks I live in a bad part of town. There are no bad parts of town here, not really. In the local newspaper, residents write angry letters about a new criminal element in town. "People from Chicago," they say, which is code for black people. On campus, pro-life students chalk messages on sidewalks like, "Planned Parenthood #1 Killer of Black Lives," and "Hands up, don't abort." My blackness is again, a threat. I don't feel safe but I know how lucky I am, which leaves me wondering how unsafe black people leading more precarious lives must feel.

Friends in cities have long asked me how I do it-spending year after years in these small towns that are so inhospitable to blackness. I say I'm from the Midwest, which I am, and that I have never lived in a big city, which is also true. I say that the Midwest is home even if this home does not always embrace me, and that the Midwest is a vibrant, necessary place. I say I can be a writer anywhere and as an academic, I go where the work takes me. Or, I said these things. Now, I am simply weary. I say, "I hate it here," and a rush of pleasure fills me. I worry that I can't be happy or feel safe anywhere. But then I travel to places where my blackness is unremarkable, where I don't feel like I have to constantly defend my right to breathe, to be. I am nurturing a new dream, of a place I already think of as home-bright sky, big ocean. I know the where and the why and even the who might be waiting there. I just need to say when.

__

Roxane Gay's writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Best American Mystery Stories 2014, Best American Short Stories 2012, Best Sex Writing 2012, A Public Space, McSweeney's, Tin House, Oxford American, American Short Fiction, West Branch, Virginia Quarterly Review, NOON, The New York Times Book Review, Bookforum, Time, The Los Angeles Times, The Nation, The Rumpus, Salon, and many others. She is also the author of the books Ayiti, An Untamed State, Bad Feminist, and Hunger, forthcoming from Harper.

Artwork by Damon Locks

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I spent five years in Michigan's Upper Peninsula-a place I didn't even know existed until I moved there to attend graduate school. I lived in a town of four thousand people. The next town over, over the portage bridge, had seven thousand people.

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Jaw Wiring: What You Need to Know by Kristine Jepsen

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Jaw Wiring: What You Need to Know by Kristine Jepsen

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Kristine Jepsen gives you a step-by-step explanation of what to expect during a jaw wiring procedure, what to expect after, possible risks, and the healing process.

The language choice that the author uses to write this informational, with details of what to expect during this surgery, in my opinion the “character” is that person that is going to have this procedure done.

The author gives a very “cut and dry” explanation of what to expect from beginning to end in great detail.

A line that was very well written and used an excellent comparison was:

You’ll find, too, that the crown capping your broken molar will feel fake when you bite hard together, and your skull, under your fingers when you wash your hair, feels stretched in the direction of the blow. You will wonder if there’s room, in the dark matter of your brain, for thoughts to circulate reliably or if they get hot and frantic as they squeeze too close to the point of impact.

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What do I need to know about jaw wiring?

This surgery, under general anesthesia, threads heavy-gauge wire around each of the teeth that survived a blow from your horse's hind hoof, after you fell off at dusk in mid-summer. You knew this could happen, given your inexperience. Slack in a horse's understanding of what you expect leaves ample rein for trouble.

The heavy wires will hold arch bars, like orthodontic braces, through which a second, lighter wire will be threaded top-to-bottom, stitching your upper jaw to your lower.

As a stern precaution, you will carry a pair of wire-cutters in the event of an emergency such as choking. Vomiting is not an emergency.

Note: Everything you learn here could be valuable if your husband says to you one night, out of the blue, his arm thrown over his eyes, where he lies beside you: "So, I haven't been true to you." You will press your hands along the condylar arms of your jaw and ask, through the ringing in your ears, "Wait. You have been? Or you haven't?"
What will happen during surgery?
Your healthcare provider(s) will guide the broken pieces back together and attach them by whatever means necessary to prevent you from moving them before they have healed.
What should I expect after jaw wiring?

When you wake up, you may not remember what has been done. The first thing to remind you will be the jagged edge of the broken molar, the one with two points missing and the enamel still flaking into the vault of your mouth, where your trapped tongue finds it, again and again.

Initially, you may have pain. Take prescribed medication as needed. Make sure you get food or a drink in your system before taking pain medication, as it can cause nausea.

It may be difficult to talk or be understood. You might find it easier to write or type on an electronic device.

You will consume only liquid foods-pureed to the clarity of broth-through a straw wedged between your molars and your cheek. Anything fibrous, such as a fleck of tomato skin, will clog the straw, or worse, catch in your wires like litter in a chain-link fence, sealing off air passage through your mouth. At times, the ache for some remembered texture will be so acute, you will stand with the refrigerator open, willing something more that you can swallow to appear. You may lose 10-15% of your body weight.

Your sleep may also be disrupted, as familiar positions may be painful.

What are the risks of jaw wiring?
You may be further damaged during the procedure, and you may not heal properly, even with this intervention.

Seek care immediately if you have:

Trouble breathing
Lightheadedness or shortness of breath
Discover your wires have come loose
Numbness
Pain that does not go away with medicine
When will healing be complete?
Your healthcare provider will remove your wires and arch bars when X-rays confirm your fracture has healed sufficiently, usually in 4-6 weeks. If you have healthy gums, your physician can pull out the heavy wires without anesthesia. This will cost thousands less than the recommended general anesthetic and will feel, at worst, like maniacal flossing.

Your physician may tell you, after it's over, that he would have chosen this method of removal for himself, and his confidence will make you smile-a nothing-but-teeth grin. You are cleared to get back in the saddle, too, he says. But you've already been at it, learning where your trust may have been faulty, where you need a firmer grip. You keep stumbling over bad behavior you accepted before and feeling out where your own habits allowed it.

The break itself, however, may not fully ossify for 4-6 months, perhaps a year. It will show up on X-rays for the rest of your life. You'll find, too, that the crown capping your broken molar will feel fake when you bite hard together, and your skull, under your fingers when you wash your hair, feels stretched in the direction of the blow. You will wonder if there's room, in the dark matter of your brain, for thoughts to circulate reliably or if they get hot and frantic as they squeeze too close to the point of impact.

The best practice, your physician will say, is to push yourself a little every day: Open as wide as you can, then a little wider.

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What do I need to know about jaw wiring? This surgery, under general anesthesia, threads heavy-gauge wire around each of the teeth that survived a blow from your horse's hind hoof, after you fell off at dusk in mid-summer. You knew this could happen, given your inexperience.

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The genre of this writing is a story told through the authors experience, as well as teaching a life lesson. His “lesson” that i took away from this reading is that just because one person (Matt Hale) is serving time for his wrong doings does not mean that the “issue” ended right there.

The main character and the narration is from the author’s first hand experiences. He also makes it a point to mention who he was with and encountered. His mom, sister, friends, people in the community, and communication with Matt Hale were characters that made up the storyline as well.

I liked that the author gave their detailed childhood memories of driving in the car with his Mom and sister. It was very descriptive in what he saw through the eyes of a child leading up to the 2000s when they were gathered around a friend's computer “trolling” Matt Hale.

The line(s) that are very well written are:” In 2003 Matt Hale is arrested and later sentenced to 40 years in prison for soliciting the assassination of a judge. Relief passes through the community. He’s gone. It’s over.

I, too, am guilty of this line of thinking.”

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First encounter: I am seven. We are driving through downtown East Peoria, the small city in Central Illinois where I grew up, me and my mom in the front, my younger sister in the back. Summer. Windows down. Congested traffic. The heat bakes the concrete. Ahead there is a commotion. Shouting, cars honking, more shouting. In the strip mall on the right a group of people have gathered, one or two dozen, all of them white like us. They wave red flags with black symbols, thrust their arms into the air, chant Sieg heil! Some people in other cars yell at the group, spit out their windows. We catch every red light. I watch, afraid, even though I don't fully understand what's going on. We inch closer and our mom snaps at us to roll up the windows.

*

If I asked questions I don't remember the answers. At some point I came across his name-Matt Hale, leader of the locally-based white supremacist group-and saw his picture in the paper. His presence and his message, once I was aware of it, wove its way through my childhood, even if its imprint has only revealed itself retroactively.

There was the time in second grade when our teacher told us that a black kid-the only one I'd ever been in class with-was to join us, and we had to be nice to him because he was different. Or how our elderly neighbor-who went to our church-said that "those niggers in Peoria are no better than animals." Or the time when, shopping for school supplies, my mom and I were stopped by a man distributing anti-Jewish pamphlets ( Save the white race! they proclaimed). Or how the poor white kids who played basketball, listened to Tupac, sagged their pants, and drawled their speech were wiggers -different from the poor white kids who wore oversized T-shirts logoed with rock and metal bands. Or or or or.

*

In a high school history class, we learn about the Holocaust, watch part of Schindler's List. Somebody asks our teacher about Matt Hale, who was a student of his. That's how it was: every conversation about ethnic minorities or racial injustice had to be measured against Hale's white supremacist rhetoric. We want to know: what was he like? What we really wanted to know: how much like him are we?

*

Early 00s: We are a group of teenagers cramped around a computer in one of our parents' basement. Somebody has gotten hold of Matt Hale's instant messenger name. We bring it up on the computer, fire off a message. Hi. He responds. Hello. We start off slow, ask him about the violin. (He plays the violin.) He tells us his favorite classical piece. We chat about practice habits. Then we drop, in our minds, the bomb: So, how come you hate Jews and black people?

Make no mistake: we were not activists. We were, primarily, in it for the thrill and the self-congratulations of trolling a radical white supremacist, so that every time we joked about the ghettos in South Peoria, or said that we were Jewed out of something, or rapped niggas along with songs blasting from our car stereos, we could do so with a clear conscience, because the viral racism that infected people like Matt Hale had not spread to us.

We settle into our chairs, waiting. Seconds pass, a full minute. Nothing happens.

*

In 2003 Matt Hale is arrested and later sentenced to 40 years in prison for soliciting the assassination of a judge. Relief passes through the community. He's gone. It's over.

I, too, am guilty of this line of thinking. I leave for eight years, go to grad school in Southeast Ohio and Nebraska. While I'm gone, I miss it. It's home. The bad parts fade; I romanticize it, the particular way the wind blows through a cornfield, the way storms roll in on the horizon, and so on.

Then I graduate, get a job, and my wife and I move back. Shortly after we move in, we hear a commotion outside. Two young white boys tromp through our yard into the meadow behind our rented house, which is filled with rusted trucks and old construction equipment. Their truck is parked out front: oversized, dusty white, a large Confederate flag dangling from the back window, blazing in the sunlight.

__

Jacob Hilton was born and raised in Central Illinois. He holds an M.A. in English and Creative Writing from Ohio University and a Ph.D. in English and Creative Writing from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Formerly the assistant editor of the Eureka Literary Magazine, he currently teaches English at Eureka College.

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First encounter: I am seven. We are driving through downtown East Peoria, the small city in Central Illinois where I grew up, me and my mom in the front, my younger sister in the back. Summer. Windows down. Congested traffic. The heat bakes the concrete. Ahead there is a commotion.

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I believe that Greg Bottoms chose a life lesson approach when he wrote this Flash piece. Although this was my least favorite reading, I understood the life lesson he was trying to get across.

The choice of language, details, and characters used to narrate this story was perfect. The life lesson that i took away from this writing is everyone has probably been the “loser” or the person that everyone “singles out”, but the spotlight can quickly change when new drama arises.

The author catches the reader's attention with it taking place during a game of Football while giving a real life example of bullying. It gives well written examples of the different feelings and thoughts that the Quarterback and Receiver has running through their minds.

In my opinion the line that was really well written was:

“He has a headache, sure, and some double-vision when he turns his head in a certain way, but at least he’s not that other kid, who is a total loser.”

It is an example of how fast things can change and how quick kids can “get over” and move on in situations like this story.

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Four adolescent boys throwing a football around in a front yard on a fall day in Virginia. Playful insults, some bragging, gossip about someone not there, making this other the subject of ridicule, which dislodges and redirects the ridicule away from anyone present.

A boy here needs to hit insults like tennis balls flying at him. Stay on your toes, racket at the ready. Sacrifice another to save yourself.

One boy, holding the football, says, "Hey, go long, go long."

Another boy starts running, full sprint, looking over his shoulder at the quarterback, who leads the receiver toward the center of the yard with his gaze.

The quarterback back-pumps his arm as if to pass, smacks the ball, pumps again, as if to throw, smacks the ball again, and then finally, as the receiver approaches his destination, he lets it go, a perfect spiral, carefully aimed at the low branches of the one lone, thick tree.

The receiver sees the tree too late, smashes into it just as the ball hits the branches above. Flesh is soft, so it's not very loud. Mostly the other boys just hear when the skull strikes the trunk, a dull woodpecker tock at the end of the crash, just before the body Slinkys and slumps.

The boys laugh at the injured player, the whole perfectly orchestrated practical joke, until they stop laughing, when some strange new and tragic tone drops down around the event. Then the feeling of a month squeezes itself into ten seconds and flares into a shared panic.

As the three standing boys calculate how to deal with a possible emergency, the receiver sits, then tries to stand, then kneels, then rocks back, and sits again. Blood drips from his forehead.

All three boys now close in on the receiver, huddle around him, ask if he is okay. Someone offers him his own sweatshirt, which had been balled up on the side of the playing space, as a rag for his head. The quarterback says it was an accident. He senses blame, culpability, a phone call to his home. He apologizes. Says he doesn't know what happened.

The receiver is whimpering, but he isn't talking, isn't able to talk yet. He's like someone just after a nap, caught inside his own rising awareness. Standing doesn't look likely for a while. But he'll live.

The quarterback, after continuing to proclaim it all an accident, a mistake, a very bad throw, ball got lose in his grip, etc., walks home. Not his fault. He'll stay up late working on his defense.

Eventually, after maybe half an hour, the receiver gets up to walk home, too. One boy walks with him, watching closely the slow steps, holding out an arm as if to help but not needing to.

*

The boys come back the next day. The receiver is smaller and weaker than the quarterback. The quarterback, safe from accountability, he thinks, makes a joke about the bandage on the receiver's head, something about a mummy.

The receiver is the new omega, patched-up and embarrassed. This moment is everything. He has to play it carefully. He brings up the topic of this weak and stupid boy they all hate at school. It's a little shaky at first, his story, but he adds some vivid details-bad teeth, weird smell, nervousness, clothes way behind the ever-shifting fashion curve. He gets the others focused, thinking.

Finally someone else insults the kid in the receiver's story. Then they all agree: Fuck that kid! He is the worst! The worst! The receiver is relieved. He has a headache, sure, and some double-vision when he turns his head in a certain way, but at least he's not that other kid, who is a total loser.

"Go long!" someone says, and the receiver, now a little less damaged, returned to the clique, a tale teller rather than a tale told, takes off jogging, much more aware of the location of the lone, blood-speckled tree.
__

Greg Bottoms is the author of eight books, including, most recently, Lowest White Boy . He teaches creative writing at the University of Vermont, where he is a professor of English.

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Four adolescent boys throwing a football around in a front yard on a fall day in Virginia. Playful insults, some bragging, gossip about someone not there, making this other the subject of ridicule, which dislodges and redirects the ridicule away from anyone present. A boy here needs to hit insults like tennis balls flying at him.

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A Brief Natural History of an Eighth Grade Girl by Sarah Freligh

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A Brief Natural History of an Eighth Grade Girl by Sarah Freligh

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The genre of this story is a life lesson and does an excellent job of highlighting an issue that women still experience everyday. This piece of writing is narrated by the author through her first hand experience as an 8th grade girl with a clear timeline leading up to her point of view on sex as an adult.

The choice in language does an excellent job of catching your attention as soon as you start reading; for example, the opening quote (and others in between paragraphs) and the first paragraph opening with the word “f&*%”. The language throughout this piece of writing catches your attention because of the phrases such as: “treasure chest”, ”tunnel down there”, in place of the actual word.

I really enjoyed reading the first three paragraphs because it is a real life issue that is still a present issue. I did not like the direction that she took with the final paragraph because it talks about sex as if it is something that is bound to happen whether you like it or not.

The line that i thought was well written and descriptive was:

“In the locker room after swim class, you huddle up with a dozen other girls underneath the hair dryer—a rusted udder whose nipples blow tornadoes of hot air at your scalp”

I go more into details of my opinion on that line in my Discussion #2 submission.

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The males [of many animal species]. . . continue to vie for the prize of siring offspring via the one-celled messengers of themselves they leave as a consequence of mating: their sperm. [1]
Fuck is everywhere, scrawled in black felt pen on the stall walls of the third floor girls' room or chalked across the red brick near the bus line where the greaser boys mob like crows. You walk past them daily, a fifty-yard trudge from car to entrance, and the entire time, you feel their eyes radaring through your wool kilt down to where your white Lollipop panties hide your treasure chest. At least that's how your gym teacher makes it sound, like your tunnel down there is studded with gems so precious you need an armored car in order to make your way safely through the world. Like you should die rather than hand over the key.
. . . among insects and spiders, at least, . . . females control much of what happens in reproduction.
In the locker room after swim class, you huddle up with a dozen other girls underneath the hair dryer-a rusted udder whose nipples blow tornadoes of hot air at your scalp-and howl the lyrics to "Louie Louie" into the bristles of your hairbrush. You try not to look shocked when the girl next to you brags about almost-but-not-quite getting finger fucked by a tenth grader in his father's garage, or when she sweeps her hair up to show you two faded blue stains where he sucked her neck.

. . . female black field crickets in Australia let spermatophores remain attached longer for more attractive males (those singing energetic songs) than for relatively wimpy males.

At night you manufacture movies in your head starring you and whatever face you paste onto a shifting cast of fantasy men-the cute lead singer for Herman's Hermits, usually, or any one of the Dave Clark Five. Or the skinny ninth grader whose AV duties endow him with a spoonful of cool evident in the ease with which he threads filmstrip into projector. In your own movie, he threads your treasure chest with gold and asks you to do it, only you don't know enough about it to even imagine it, and so you fall asleep.
. . . females of most species mate with more than one male, often in rapid succession. . .
Practice makes perfect, and over the years you will practice a lot. You will do it in motel rooms and basement apartments and once on the eighteenth green of a golf course on Christmas Eve. You will do it with men you call friends, with men you see once and never again, and men who are not nice. You will do it so often that you will barely recall the time before you understood what it entailed, only that it loomed in the distance like a city at night and how you counted down the miles until you arrived.
Leigh W. Simmons, a biologist at the University of Western Australia, in Perth, claims that you don't understand life unless you have studied dung flies . . . .
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[1] All quotes come from Marlene Zuk, "Sperm and Eggs on Six Legs," Natural History 119, no. 6 (June 2011): 23-35.

Sarah Freligh is the author of Sort of Gone, a book of poems that follows the rise and fall of a fictional pitcher named Al Stepansky. Her work has been featured in Garrison Keillor's "Writer's Almanac" and in the anthology Good Poems, American Places. Among her awards are a 2009 poetry fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, a poetry grant from the Constance Saltonstall Foundation in 2006, and a grant from the New York State Council for the Arts in 1997.

Illustration by Marc Snyder

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A Brief Natural History of an Eighth Grade Girl

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The males [of many animal species]. . . continue to vie for the prize of siring offspring via the one-celled messengers of themselves they leave as a consequence of mating: their sperm. [1] Fuck is everywhere, scrawled in black felt pen on the stall walls of the third floor girls' room or chalked across the red brick near the bus line where the greaser boys mob like crows.