I had screwed up in making us blood brothers. Outside of basketball, we were different

 The vines were biding their time, full of life force that did not care about her or how sorry she was

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I am wholly unimportant—just a witness to her shapeshifting, possessed of a voice that can be compelled into song by the land’s unfolding

I watch the lights slip and slur on the headpond and think down, toward the dam, the embankment and the long drop of the spillway where the water rests, whirled and stunned

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I don’t know where a person can go when they disappear, apart from underwater.

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Half a breath is all it takes, in or out.

You can keep going, the moon said, if you want to.

The rooms I imagined repeating endlessly, with me at the centre.

Being a warrior princess is a lot like being an archetype of human potential.

“It's often triggered by group settings. Especially groups laughing.”

Go to bed. Lock the door. Don’t open it for anyone.

Kawishhhh! Kaaaawishhhh!

"He listened to the message three times, then sent a text to Ciara begging off dinner without giving a reason."

Bert scuttled through the intervals in a microscopic world of his own creation.

No one gives up words except to get out of hell.

When deprived of sensory input, humans experience miraculous, spiritual things

Three poems by Sue Goyette, excerpted from her book Penelope.

Three poems from Tanja Bartel: Dream Job, Unkempt, Inept.

Excerpt from Michelle Elrick's Then/Again.

Mr. Maillard scared me from the moment he stepped from his red Chevy pickup. He stood six inches shorter than me and weighed sixty pounds less, but exuded tough son-of-a-bitch like cologne.

Joseph always told me, you belong to Newfoundland. Don’t call yourself a Canadian. You are an islander, despite an Alberta birth certificate.

"America. 2037. The country is a giant theme park. Cigarettes, alcohol, firearms and professional sports are outlawed."

"We haven’t slept since Saturday, we’ve been so excited by the arrival of a stranger, an odd sort of city mouse lost in the country."

From Chalk, winner of the 38th Annual International 3-Day Novel Contest.