Author: Hazel J. Hall
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VITA EXPERIENCIA
mihi vita est miraculum. During the day, I was visited every hour. A nurse for every year. A rub of alcohol and a bit of saline twice as often. There were the IVs. The shots.I was reminded of my grandmother’s needle cushions watching the breaking surface of my skin. The nurses always asked, “Do you […]
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“Buddy”
Between the wire-barbed bar, lens cap of his life, he can see a worker approaching his cage. This time, she does not offer him food. She reaches for the sign above his cage (“Puppy for Sale”) and pulls it down, the replacement already under-arm. “Dog for Sale; Marked Down.” Partially paid for by what it […]
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Tell Us How You Feel
I’m sitting on a city bench, running on empty. Whatever vividness used to live here has just. Burned out. That space of empty space. Lost in something I have lost. It’s a feeling not like ice, but ash asking, “Where do I go from here?” And then staring at the ground beneath my feet. Losing […]
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When We Are Reclaimed
Slow-dancing to jazz, they waltz down the street, framed by an orange sky. It’s the end of the world; the cries of deep voices mix indiscriminately with shrill ones, reverberating endlessly down the road. Dark figures, veiled in the unknown of shadow, watch from buildings far back as the lovers dance across the asphalt. The […]
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Contact
Thirty-seven. When the eyes scour the photo, they will notice, however unconsciously, that the photographed hands hold each in thirty-seven places. No matter whose eyes look at it, no matter what species will find the photo, they will be amazed by it. On the deserted planet of the worst people during their worst time, the […]
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The Magic of Summer Skies
During June of 2022, I took a short mental break with my family and visited Cape Cod, Massachusetts. None of us are big vacation people or travelers, but all of us needed this time to be in a new space and to be with nature. Throughout our stay, we saw many different sights, animals, flowers, […]
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Wishes of Sugar and Insulin (Varies by the Day)
She’s sitting by the fire, drawing with a pencil and crayons. Her phone (though she wishes it was a dog) whines at her side, begging for notice. My service dog is hungry, she tells herself, flipping over to maintain the strange creature, growling and groaning. Her stomach flips as she does it, turning on the […]
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The iPod We Only See on Road Trips
it’s still filled with all the 2011 hits and classics that used to put us to sleep. It’s music that lets the sun rest softer on our skin, looking out the window as the forever of the world fades. Like youth never thinking about the distance, length, or time lost. When it was new, bumping […]
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Late Night Porch Talks
Stars, don’t be scared to linger; this starts and stops with you. So don’t leave, don’t be scared. This is only part of us, long before we bury it. Outlive a moment, and forget. Moon, can you hear me? Do you care to listen? Come here: be still. We’ve got you. There is no need […]
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Somewhere, Out There
habitual days and days when nothing is new in the way it once was beneath some warm sun, interstellar more than I will ever know this direction, this path, these places feel aimless in their brevity.it is days like these when it is all infinintely more finite than me. fleeting. And cruel. perhaps I have […]
Hazel J. Hall 