Author: thearrowrock
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His hands started shaking. His palms began sweating. His legs beneath him felt like jelly wobbling uncontrollably. He looked over at the brave girl next to him. She was smiling and talking with the attendant strapping her into the seat. She looked over at him, “Are you okay Dad?” He smiled in return, “Yes, as…
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To my younger self, I bet you’re probably wondering how we recovered from that “incident” that changed your life that one night in August. I bet you’re probably wondering if we ever got past the extreme embarrassment that encompassed our life for all of those years. I bet you’re even wondering if we still have…
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I’ve been doing it since I can remember. Maybe four or five. It’s been a constant for me, I don’t remember a time I’ve ever not done it. My mom has been screaming at me to “STOP!” for at least 15 years now. It bothers her like nothing has ever bothered her before, which is…
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Lightning cracked across the sky and disappeared with the same urgency I had while racing down the highway driving to Tyler’s house. It was night’s like these, with the fat raindrops embracing my windshield, only for the wipers to inevitably thwart their plans to run my eyesight askew. It was nights like these that ran…
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Hazy morning smog fills the lungs of two sacks of entwined flesh; the mental unsteadiness from a night barely remembered outside of sensations of a vague variety best not spoken about in polite company. As eyes slowly process the cheap hotel walls, of the petals of faded roses, and bodies revolt at the sheets with…
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“Where the fuck are the police?! I called them like, half an hour ago,” Ricky said as he scrambled around the counter for something to clean up the blood with. It happened so fast that no one really knew what to do or even think. A man walked into the gas station, and it wasn’t…
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The burn of the cigarette argues with the chilled gust In his lungs their battle rages He waves to others though they care not Cold whiskey being the one true love for his hands Sitting and waiting for things not to come He battles the tears in his eyes Though the eventual rain will provide…
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Content Warning: Sensitive Topics Nathaniel is lying down in his bathtub. His face is the only thing the water isn’t covering, like an island surrounded by a dirty sea. Nathaniel hears the muffled down fan in his bathroom. The water slowly clogging his ears decides what he hears. I thought I did everything right, Nathaniel…
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If I were a bee, there would be so much glee. I would curl up in a buttercup flower, instead of being stuck in rush hour. I would dance in the pollen, without the dread of any problems. If a bee were me, excited, it would not be. It’d have to learn how to read.…
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Two men stood atop the serene mountain, both unmoving in a white field of flowers. One was covered in a cloak that seemed to pull in the heat from the world around it as it billowed gently in the wind; the only identifying mark was a small crest on the left side of the figure’s…
Arrow Rock Literary Journal 