So Many Things
I’m such a warrior, thinks the boy. Fierce and brave.
He’s fighting the shadows in his room.
For a second he’s a boy. Then a locked door. Then a warrior again.
He’s trying to be so many things at once.
And for a second he’s brave despite all the whimpering around and just beyond
him—it’s a delicate, failing thing he does.
It’s unfair
how many things
can come through a doorway
Single Sentence Staccato
1. A young woman’s savings for facial reconstruction result in disfigurement.
2. Front row seats reveal a hidden tragedy between performers.
3. Heat waves kill hundreds in Michigan due to faulty air conditioners.
4. A brilliant musician suffers his first public breakdown at an important recital.
5. A scientist’s lungs rust after he breathes a strange mist.
6. A child’s wish to know the horrors of adulthood becomes granted.
7. An intelligent gorilla’s broken hands can no longer perform sign language.
8. Intense jealousy tears apart an all-girl school when only one handsome male teacher is hired.
9. Melted ice caps leave penguins defenseless against orcas.
10. A mental patient is systematically humiliated by her wards, but no one believes her.
11. A teenager walking home is ambushed by an enormous trapdoor spider and dragged under.
12. A sniper in Afghanistan believes himself capable of single-handedly ending the war.
13. An old man slowly loses his morning struggle of poking his hernia back into place.
14. Shame drives a terrorized young man to do unspeakable things.
15. Silence stains a much-needed second honeymoon.
16. Strange shadows surface at the edge of a child’s bedside lamp.
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Christopher Morgan is the Editor for Arroyo Literary Review, growing up in Michigan, Georgia, and California. His poetry and fiction has appeared in Gargoyle, Permafrost, A cappella Zoo, Bartleby Snopes, theNewerYork, DOGZPLOT, Voicemail Poems, and others. He loves Tumblr, happy hour margaritas, haiku, and wasting his minutes with bullet chess.
