The difference makes all the difference
It seems like every American has a story about 9/11. The memory of that morning is seared in the collective consciousness of an entire nation. It’s not because of national pride. That day was the embodiment of trauma, a horror that unfolded in real time on the national news, a tragedy that struck straight to the heart with its brutal reminder of mortality’s callous indifference.
There are few moments in recent history that even come close to this level of emotional shock. The JFK assassination. The Challenger disaster. But this moment somehow felt worse than anything that had come before…
And how you can too with your writing
Making money on Medium is easy. It’s so easy in fact, everyone is doing it. How do I know everyone is doing it? Because every time I log into Medium I am told about it by a multitude of articles bragging about how easy it is to do.
I’m told this daily by virtually a million people on the platform. It’s like every third article on the site wants to share their secret money making tip that made them an overnight success. But, I’ve got them all beat. I’ve cracked the code.
I officially made a million dollars just from…
Poetry
When you love a dog,
you want it to live forever
because you know
just how close
tomorrow lies.
You bring that puppy
into your life,
home from the pound
and its harsh chemical smell,
its harsh reverberant chatter
of barks that echo
through tile, concrete, chainlink.
He sleeps like a warm pillow,
nose whistling,
head at rest on your thigh.
Look how big his paws are!
Look how his lip gets stuck
under his bottom tooth, so cute!
When he’s bounding up the steps,
when he’s chasing his tail,
sitting with his head cocked
watching you eat pizza,
tearing a tennis ball…
The writer your mother warned you about
Hello, fellow Medium addicts. My name is Jay Sizemore. You may recognize me from such films as “The Poet With Borderline Personality Disorder” or “How to Alienate an Entire Genre of Writers in Five Easy Moves.” I actually have an undiagnosed case of mild Tourette’s Syndrome, which I believe was caused by a brain injury I suffered in 2006. This condition is triggered by disturbing thoughts I have, and routinely causes me to shout unintelligible syllables at random moments, and it always makes my wife laugh.
I’ve been writing for Medium now for a little over a year. During that…
A short story inspired by The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
As Greg Stillson awoke one morning from frightful dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a Trump supporter.
The usual hangover headache of drowsiness and fog, his pre-coffee brain was gone, replaced now with a crystalline certainty about the world. Where previously much had been shrouded in mystery and doubt, now, he felt only a morose calmness. He knew the grand conspiracy of deep state design. He knew vaccines were evil instruments of the Devil. He knew global climate change was a hoax. And most importantly, he knew Donald Trump was sent by God to lead his chosen…
The two presidents go head to head on the subject of sex
America loves sex. That’s why Americans tend to vote for whoever they’re most attracted to. I don’t know if this is a real statistic, but it sounds convincing enough so let’s roll with it.
In 2020, Joe Biden was the clear winner of presidential candidate America was most likely to fuck. Donald Trump got the short end of the stick. So to speak. Unless you’re one of the Americans who still believe Trump will be reinstated to the office by…when was it again? Oh, nevermind. The Q works in mysterious ways.
But why exactly is Joe Biden so much more…
Most poetry contests are scams
I’ve submitted to a lot of poetry contests over the years. There are many to choose from. It’s hard to resist the temptation to enter these contests, when they offer such lucrative rewards, many of them paying out at least a thousand bucks to the winners. Imagine it, getting paid a thousand bucks (at least!) just for writing a good poem.
Because of the prize money, many of these contests receive thousands of entries. Assuming you are truly sending in good poetry, and let’s assume most of the poets competing here know what they are doing, you have to figure…
Rolling Stone’s list this year was ridiculous
Rolling Stone had the audacity this week to reissue their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of all Time. In this list, the first time they’ve updated it in 17 years, they bumped Bob Dylan off the number one spot in favor of Aretha Franklin, and completely shook up the top ten. Artists you might expect to see in the top ten of such a list, like The Beatles, or The Rolling Stones, don’t show up until later.
It’s a weird world, where a person is supposed to think Public Enemy’s song “Fight the Power” is the second greatest song…
In memoriam
Today's tears are different
and unexpected
symptomatic of the saturnine,
deadpan delivery:
now here's the fake news
if I was a moth, I'd be the funniest
God damn moth you ever heard
capable of human speech,
I'd say, hey, wanna hear a story
about how I confused a cockroach
for the President of NBC,
or how I spent a week
talking to a homeless man
wearing a name tag that said
World's Best Dad.
Spoiler Alert: he wasn't my Dad.
He wasn't anyone's dad,
in fact, he was a drug addict
and clinically insane!
I could go on and on
about…
Poetry
I hear the creaking rope
of a tire swing
just as I can feel those fraying fibers
prickling the tender skin
of my misspent years
spinning, the scent of rain water
sloshing in the rubber well
of the old Michelin
beneath my thighs.
I can hear the coyotes
yipping in the wake
of a ghost train
traversing those green
Kentucky hills,
and somewhere a brushfire burning.
I can still feel my mother’s cheek
pressed warm against mine
in an embrace
meant to slow the escape
of breath like seconds slipping,
the smallest of stones
sliding from the banks of a river
and carried…
Jay Sizemore
Provocative truth teller, author of 18 poetry collections. Cat dad. Dog dad. Currently working from Portland, Oregon. Learn more at: Jaysizemore.com.
