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Sunday, December 26, 2010

Edition Three.

One longer piece of fiction today. We hope that everyone has a good end of the year.
__________________________________________________________________

by Alden Coldwell

It’s bright. The light seeps through the faulty blinds and hits me straight in the eye. I burry my face in his chest and just breathe him in. I close my eyes and feel the perfect peeks and valleys of his knuckles, the smooth fingernails, the stiff tips resting lightly on his stomach, right where the trail of dark hair starts. I always linger on his fingernails. They are clean and unbroken and unfamiliar. I open my eyes and look at my own chipping and broken nails next to his. I try to keep them painted, so that he won’t see how sad they are, but the polish is already flaking off again.

He’s still drifting in and out of sleep, but as always I am awake. I lay there waiting. I know that if I can just lie there long enough he will pull himself out of sleep and he will say something. If I can resist pressing him, he will mutter whatever I want to hear.

“I like that you’re not full of bullshit.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re at a school with all girls. You know.”

I trace the outline of his muscles with my fingertips. There is a dense patch of hair right over his heart. He’ll be like my father; hairy like a bear. In a few years I’ll be able to run my fingers through it and fondly recall the smoothness that is dominant now. But that will have to wait.

My side still hurts from when he rolled on top of me last night. He says that he can’t sleep, the bed’s too small, but he will always close his eyes, rest his hand on my hip, the air will start to whistle evenly through his nose and then he will begin to snore. He tosses and turns the whole night and it’s me that doesn’t sleep. He doesn’t notice, though, and I won’t tell him. I can deal with being tired if I can spend those few, lazy moments lying beside him with the sun in my eyes. I can cope with the ache in my bones that will come later, after I’ve tried to move. For now I will just lie here, tracing the bones and the muscles, remembering moments that we will never share.

He pulls me close in a familiar, one-armed hug and the muscles flex and I hold onto his side, trying to distinguish the individual ribs like you can do with mine, but his are not so easily exposed. When I finally find one, I will trace it over and over, memorizing the way he is built. I am so used to my own body and watching it fall apart that I can’t comprehend his sturdiness.

When I finally get out of bed, my arms will still smell like him, I have been clinging so close. I will be able to feel him on me until I am back at home and in the shower and covering up his smell with tea tree oil and chamomile. I will wash him off of me, moving slowly through my day, and I will wish I was back in bed, tangled up in his solidness.

The silence is no longer comfortable; it is my turn to speak. I do not know normal things about him. I do not know if he is right-handed or left-handed. I do not know if he has any brothers or sisters. I know that he’s never been to New York, but he’s been to London twice. That he has a summer house in the Outer Banks and that it’s the only place he feels like home. We have skipped the preliminaries and moved straight to the little secrets it takes other couples so long to discuss.

“Do you have a middle name?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I was just wondering.”
“Yeah, I have one.”

I stroke his head, feeling the soft oiliness of his hair, and drag my fingertips down the side of his face, running them over his collarbone and kissing the side of his chest. He squeezes my side lightly and draws little circles in the small of my back. He is beginning to fall back to sleep. I will let him.

Tomorrow I will wake up without him and I will have to trace the circles myself. I always fall asleep clutching my pillow as if remembering hard enough will make him appear. He is never annoyed on our mornings, and I never press him. It is when we are apart, holding conversations where we can’t see each others’ faces that I will begin to pry and he will let his voice become uneven. He takes everything so seriously on the telephone, as if he thinks the whole world will overhear us. Never on our mornings.

I don’t want to move out of the covers. I get closer to him, trying to prepare myself for the harsh cold of the linoleum floor against my bare feet. My pants and my jacket are so far away, it’s not even worth it to try to move if I can run my fingers along his jawline and just lay there. But he has to take a shower, so he climbs out of our nest and brings me my clothes. He stays and he watches as I put them back on, and when I am finished, he takes me by the hand and helps me off the edge of the bed. I don’t fall into his arms this time, like I usually do. I stand on my own, and when it comes time to leave, I slip out of the door with a squeeze of his fingertips and a final glance somewhere to the left of his eye.

Alden Coldwell is a student and future teacher. She currently attends Simmons University. Her interests include intelligence and writing.

Monday, December 6, 2010

Edition Two.

two poems today from three friends, enjoy!


1. Darkness
Jeff Reid


is the sound of footsteps
as a lover escapes into the night,
the stench of cheap perfume
and stale cigarette smoke
lingering in the air.
It is a Gideon's bible
turned to the book of Revelations,
the fiery glow of a neon vacancy sign
dancing in rhythm with the rain.


Jeff is a musician, writer, photographer and father living in Virginia and currently attending Randolph College.




2. floating
Anna Conn and Tyler Atwood


Can you hold my strawberry?
These are my one-thirty musings:


I have been figuring out things like yellow fever vaccines, picture frames,
         empty nest syndrome and chocolate icing.
I have been thinking about France a lot today.
It started on a napkin in Alabama and
goes well with coffee and grass.


You are obsessed with hats and I am obsessed with books.
We will be friends once and forever.


We sat on a rock in Georgia
after the Dakotas.
I put the schedule between the cereals.
Wednesdays we'd paint in Sienna;
We'd meet at the clock tower
and read there next to rosemary.


There's no bend in my fork —
lend me a spoon.
It's a two pitcher kind of day.


I wish you had the wind outside my window.


Anna is a senior at the University of Virginia, and she introduced me to co-written poems. Tyler is an English major, also at the University of Virginia.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Edition 1.5

Just one story today. More pieces next week.
-
John

by deL


I was hunched over, leaning in closer to the screen. I was searching his face for the name of a woman, but now I’m sitting back. I’m drained and overwhelmed. It’s almost as if he was created as some sort of superhuman, a rogue genetics experiment helmed by some sort of underground society, the Illuminati, or the Masons; People who know exactly what we’re turned on by and how to get us to buy it. 


I think of myself as sort of a savvy kind of guy. I understand the manipulation that I’m subjected to every day. I submit to it with a grin. A knowing sort of smile. I see you caressing my ego, stroking my dick, making me want you without my consent.  Like we’re all in on this huge heist of the mind, the appropriating and merchandising of our culture and emotion. I get it; we’re all trying to make a buck. 


With him, I can’t even pretend I’m hip to their plan.  I am, but I’m totally not; the second he starts to play that beat up Stratocaster, I’m completely enthralled. I don’t know where I am but on his hands on the fretboard, on his lips over those words.  I’m part of the target audience (MALES: 19-35, FEMALES: ALL AGES). I didn’t even mean to be here, watching (I was looking for videos of cats climbing on top of dogs), but now, I can’t stop. 



I’m leaning into the desk again; I’m eight inches away, breathing a little heavy. My ass hurts from this stupid computer chair I found on the street leading up to my house. My back hasn’t been straightened out for hours. Its 4:53 a.m. and my ears are contorted in a painful, painful way by these earphones I stole from work.


I can see his emotion, when he’s playing, even before, as he smiles out to the crowd. He knows the stranded feelings he’s going to summon back with his voice even before he begins. 


And yet, it’s so convincing. I’m taken in completely. He’s stuck on this stage, trying to vomit out so much feeling and love, he’s choking back the flow with his words, you can see it in his face. He just closes his eyes, and I know he’s felt the pain that I have. 


He’s just convinced me in that first verse that if we were to get together and drink a couple beers, just to talk, that he would become my best friend, one I respected. I would know that when he gave me advice he would mean it. He’s intelligent; he knows what’s going on in there. He can see what I can’t feel out loud in front of the girl I love. He knows what’s going on in the hearts of men in the 21st century—a cold, emotionless, digital age. He cares about grooming and taste, good sense and aesthetics. I might even try to kiss him, after I’ve told him about all the girls I’ve never had the courage or good sense to try to love. 


He would know what I mean.  


-


deL is a self-made man, working from San Francisco (Full Disclosure: on this website). His influences include the artist Robert Brady, and art-deco from Washington D.C.

Monday, November 8, 2010

We are now accepting photo and art submissions!

Dear Folks,


We are now accepting photography and art submissions for eventual editions of From West Egg.


If you would like to submit, please do so at: westegg.publishing@gmail.com


Please keep in mind the limitations of the computer screen medium. 




Thank you from West Egg.

Monday, November 1, 2010

Edition One.

1. Trouble in Eden
Jerry Wells

God wants you to know that he left
a crate of peaches on the front stoop.

He would tell you himself but you're
away and he doesn't like to leave

messages. He said you haven't spoken
to him much lately. Maybe peaches

are the real route to a woman's heart;
He would know, He always does.

It's not like you to forsake
Him like that. I know

you have your reasons,
you always do.

Your sheets fell off the line
the other day. I put them back for you,

I hope you noticed. They smelled like you.
That scent hasn't seen

my side of the Garden
since you left. I hope you

write back, either to me or God.
He worries, you know.


Jerry is a Junior at Randolph College majoring in English. He is also a member of the cross country team.

2. Daddy Issues
Maggy Roza

My dad packed his bags in late October and slammed
the door as he left. We watched him climb
into the passenger seat of Coach Mulligan’s white Suburban

through a crack in the blinds, and all Mom would say

as she stared at our lunchboxes
was that he was going to Chicago.

The first time a boy hit me,
I thought I was dreaming. People just don’t do that anymore,
I thought,

but he slapped me with the back of his hand
and his football ring sliced my cheek.



I watched the goldfish on my therapist’s desk drift in sickly circles.
She said that men would always be a challenge for me. She said

I’d have a hard time trusting them,

because my dad had never been a good dad, and it
was natural to choose men like my father.



Now it’s all I think about. I watch a girl in the mirror
at a party, rubbing up on a jock, and all I see are
daddy issues wrapped in a mini skirt.


Maggy is a poet from Sacramento, California. She has four siblings, idolizes Jack Kerouac, and despises Southern hospitality. She plans one day to write a punk rock opera.


3. juicies
ebm700

plum..p!
swollen
taut
begging me to
bite in
and eagerly
rip and tear
no care
only the need to
release
pour
into me
its ripened gift
and its grateful sweet sigh…

peach..y!
cleaved
to reach
its tiny pit
perfect
protected
in fleshy folds
pry
and try
with curious tongue
to tempt the bit—
shy
but yearning
to be exposed
encouraged
to finally meet
its devourer—
and yield…

cherry, cherry
toy and play
swirl and twirl
on sassy stem.
rouge red
stain on them—
the lips
that dare to take…

ebm700 is a woman of a certain age, musician, bodyworker. She enjoys her view of the river and the world, from her tiny turret in the city.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

It Begins.

This is the beginning.

Here we are. To start a new trend. To share our writing. To show what we know and feel. We are passionate about the art of storytelling and we know the way we express it is different from whatever else you've been reading lately.

We are connected by our aesthetic sensibilities. We are separated by age and perspective, but we are united in our search for truth in narrative.

We give our words, with no expectation of fiscal reimbursement, so please don't copy our work.

Read. Enjoy. Share.

Search with us.

Find West Egg.

If you're interested, or would like to submit to our community, send no more than 3 poems or 1 short story (10,000 words or less) to:

westegg.publishing@gmail.com.