Island of Misfit Lit

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Two Poems

What Not to Eat on New Years

Crab—because they skitter sidelong—might counter your clockwise.
 
Pheasant for fear of your luck taking wing. As Emily Dickinson said: hope is a feathered thing.

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New Years

Their feet stuck to the thin layer of beer that coated the kitchen and mail littered the rug by the front door. They went out only to get milk and coffee and diner eggs. The snow had melted into a dirty Jersey slush that seeped up her pants as she skipped along the gutter to keep pace.

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I Go to Join It

In the picture of my heart’s desire, I am watching “Three’s Christmas,” the fourteenth episode of the second season of Three’s Company, and the only holiday episode of my favorite series. 

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Fourteen Sticks Inside

Don’t resist counseling.”
“I resist everything but clown makeup and donuts.”
The family is finally gone so I inhaled
fourteen original snack sticks

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Yelp Reviews of 1988

like would I go back if I could?
it has rained for thirty-six hours & I am bored of the present so sure maybe

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Fox My Fox

Toward the end, the grandmother began leaving offerings in her backyard each night for the fox. Her family told her not to; but each time they confronted her about it, she claimed she had no idea what they were talking about.

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A Family Tradition

I’ve always envied people who can remember holidays from their childhood. I’m not great at remembering things. Sometimes I forget to eat, or shower, or brush my teeth. Sometimes I forget to ask my wife if she’s okay when she cries. I’m trying, I really am. I leave notes for myself like clues, little reminders to be a better person. Sometimes I forget to read them.

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That Time When Me and Mister Were Celebrities, and We Were All Cousins

I walked into the dirtiest, saddest, scariest gas station in Baton Rouge. The kind where the roof buckles in the middle and the refried grease stains the ceiling. The kind where the cockroaches scatter when you reach for the just-expired milk in the fridge. I needed to use their Western Union, and the guys behind the counter said: Ismaili? Ismaili? We know your husband.

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Instagram Jesus

We wanted to begin. We wanted to be reborn and die and do all these things at once. We didn’t know what any of it meant. Only that it would happen once a year, at Stephen John’s place. This is where he had his lawn scene.

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No One Deserves Happiness in Christmas Town

by Amber Sparks

Christmas Town. What a dreadful, dismal, backwater dump.

Have you been?

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Little Miss Colorado

Before they searched the basement. Before her father unlatched the stubborn door to the wine cellar. Before they found the small form huddled beneath a white blanket. Before her father frantically lifted her from the floor and carried her up the stairs. Before he contaminated the crime scene with fingerprints and tiny traces of DNA...

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Two Poems

First it’s the good sugar, all baby
it's cold outside and warm hands of the lover
on your spine. While any fool could see
the trees turning to spindle points,

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Holiday Fruitcakes to Give Away and Enjoy

When you make the fruitcake there are some rules:

You will want to picture it covered in apricot jam, nuts, the fingerprints of lovers, but that is to get ahead of yourself. To put the cake before the batter, as it were. 

First, soak the raisins, currants, and candied peel in the cheapest brandy you can buy in the largest bottle you can find.

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Two Poems

This poem was supposed to be about
Donald Trump playing Dungeons and Dragons,
the gregariously-sided dice
scattered across his T-shaped dining room table,
his orange barbarian
righteous and at least level five.

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Christmas Cards My Teenage Boyfriend Meant to Send

t’s the seasonal shift, the boomerang-bending-back to turn and return to the hands that cradled us, once, but also the melancholy of realizing all the things that were supposed to happen during the year and didn’t. I think he knew that. I think that’s why I couldn’t count on much from my ex-penpal ex-boyfriend, but I could rely on him remembering me in December, reaching for me in December.

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Three Poems

Tell whoever says there’s nothing
to do in Fremont, Indiana that
the Holiday Inn Express has
free cookies all night and
a business center and a Christmas tree
all in a row in the lobby.

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Two Poems

People who hate this
song are like people who
don’t like candy corn: 
loud, everywhere, and
wrong. Do you hate
Jello too? Waffle cones? 
Otters? 

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Latkes Talk About Why We Never Go to My Parents With Hanukkah Even Though We Always Go to Yours With Christmas

Directions:  Roughly grate the potatoes. You can also do this with a blitzer, but there’s something nice about knowing you’re participating in your culture’s tradition by doing it by hand. Also, good moment to get your loved ones involved! Like William, your boyfriend, who says he wants to help grating potatoes but also really wants to finish building a house on Sims.

How to Get That Nuclear Winter Look from 1600 Penn to Your Own Den!
How to Get That Nuclear Winter Look from 1600 Penn to Your Own Den!

Are you looking for the Instagrammiest #holidaywin for 2017? Come on down to the Lancaster Mall HobbyLobby, where we can help you recreate the yuletide look-of-the-moment for your house! If you’ve been searching for #nightmareforest #UpsideDownChristmasTown #TimBurtonMinusWhimsy decorations onPinterest, you’re likely as Cherno-bowled over by Lady of Winterfell Melania Trump’s Christmas scheme as we are.

FROM FUTURE STREAMING SERVICES USER GENERATED CONTENT #2
FROM FUTURE STREAMING SERVICES USER GENERATED CONTENT #2

BY DENNIS HERBERT
The only reason I am even here to tell this story is a narrow escape from the stampeding crowd. A desperation jump through the tear in time of a Christmas shopping line. A line of code in Department Store Deathmatch