AJ Padron

A world that smells of sand and sea and dirt: that fishy, salty soil, musty stagnant swamp water on sweet-rooted plants. Sometimes, this place feels more powerful to me than the ocean itself. More moving, more vast; older and stronger. The rattle of leaves and conifer needles is like the sound of waves, the air […]

Across the darkened horizon sparks the light of buildings too innumerable to count. Between her and the fireflies of blurred and muddled light, there stretches a vast and silken field of gathered, bending wheat. The color has been seeped out of the golden stalks by the night and as they fall one over the other […]

The mountains are vague, distant grey and green decay all muffled by snow

Along the river, winding so, the trees draw hotly close Dry air, wet ground, But lack of unshod feet The groggy song, of tired stream with dark along the banks light will filter through the leaves, but lack that cleansing heat No bodies part the echoed image, No shouts of joy do ring and a […]

The smell of moss and dead things, warmed by rising sun, the carrion eater’s call rings above the clear springs run   The heat of day so tiring the nature so relaxed the sweetest death aspiring the creature’s minds untaxed   Green on green with brown below draped in palest yellow light only naturally, life […]

  Most other high schoolers had to worry about grades, or girls, or petty group drama and not about whether or not their mob boss father would wring their neck when he found out they were gay. Or, at least, as far as Tommy knew, they didn’t. Sure, every kid has problems with their parents, […]