by Robert W. Cording
After my brother died, my mother, the most rational person in our family, noticed red-tailed and red-shouldered hawks everywhere. Of the eighteen species in North America, these two are most common. Still, they arrived when she seemed to need them, unexpected gifts. Over the last four years, she has filled notebooks describing flight angles, call sounds, and, what I have the hardest time understanding, how these sightings helped her through her grief. Continue reading
Filed under Nonfiction
by Ellery Beck
I am sick of walking on the sidewalk with cicadas as they sing their last songs. I’m back on the way to class, late—was sitting with a raven, she seemed like she couldn’t fly. How could you expect me not to stay? The big leaves, the ones that swallow my hands when I hold them, are starting to fall. Continue reading
Filed under Nonfiction
by Hayley Notter
I found a sandwich bag of white powder in Will’s nightstand. Straddling him, sundress on the floor, I wasn’t reaching into his drawer for a condom (we would break up before I had the chance to offer up my virginity). I don’t remember what I was reaching for. Continue reading
Filed under Nonfiction
by Neil Connelly
Summoned 1100 miles north to witness my mother’s end, I spend the flights fixated on her last words. In my fiction classes, I mocked the movie scenes where loved ones passed with trite cliches. I’m proud of you. I’m ready to go. I love you. Yet now, how I yearned for such hackneyed words. Continue reading
Filed under Nonfiction
by Cait West
This is your hand—dried, cracked, bleeding on a January day under a muted sun. At rest on your book, it twitches in sleep, and your glasses have fallen down your nose as you lie stretched out on the floor, too busy to sit on the sofa. You’re too impatient to rest, but your body has taken over anyway in this forced sleep while reading. It’s just like when I was a child, and you would fall asleep while quizzing me on my phonics. You would make up stories in your sleep, and I would crouch down next to your open mouth and wait for the words to whisper out. Continue reading
Filed under Nonfiction
Hawaii Pacific Review 