Highways of moisture peel in from the city center. The bridge connecting the green tear to its mother and siblings lets the single worker hang, lost in the swarm. It pays scoops of sunlight to be a strand of hair on a healthy head.
Author: Sabrina Parra Diaz
I believe in the power of a smile.
Sample of Lyric Essay
and this is important, just try a step is distance
Sample of “Volunteer”
In this spiraling boulder we call a planet, there are certain times and places that intersect to create a situation in which every single person involved is absolutely miserable. Every instance of news, airport terminals, certainly, or hospital waiting rooms would apply. I recall the last day of fourth grade; there wasn’t a soul in those chipped yellow walls that actually desired to be there. Well a week ago I was fortunate enough to fall into one of those fissures in time and space: Tuesday morning, the bus stop on the corner where, to the left, the stoplight is spitefully ignorant of pedestrians, and when, as was the case this special day, the bus is late, an overlap of people will converge under the insipid daylight.
Sample of “Spite”
“I have not spoken rudely to any child below the age of six while intoxicated with stolen beverages.” No, I’d been completely clear of mind when I’d told that child to jump into its mother’s grave and never return. The beverage I’d held was not stolen, nor had it intoxicated me, but the amber cloak that had flowed from my shoulders had not been in my possession, nor that of a vendor, a couple days prior. Despite this, my assertion was truthful, and there were only forty-one of them left for me to surmise.
The One Time That The Floor Was Lava In My Little Apartment In Richmond, 2005
My toes curl at the edge of a towering cliff as I gaze at the beautiful scene around me; ancient stone pillars stand as all that’s left between me and the crackling orange lava below. It sizzles and pops, and I scowl at it.
Blue
The focused hum of the factory worker tapers off at the confusion. His fingers twitch, long dirty nails scraping against his jeans briefly as he fights the temptation to take his tattered copy of the book out of his inner jacket pocket to check. It would be quick, he reasons as he checks items off his clipboard, the marks barely inside their designated boxes. Into those wrinkled pages, that messy sea of nonsense, then straight back out. The appeal grows gradually as he runs through the words again, skipping over the ones that had been blotched out by his breakfast mishap. Poetry’s adaptable, right?
Flee Moon
Based on Ballad of the Moon, Moon by Federico García Lorca Flee, Moon! Flee! Flee! There’s danger coming, can’t you see? Glazed eyes reflecting the gentle light of the pale woman before him, Antonio takes hold of her shoulders, fistfuls of her white robe spilling between his knuckles.
Dissolving Margins from My BRILLIANT FRIEND
Lila’s episode of dissolving margins during the New Year’s celebration marks the unexpected climax of several threads that had been tangling throughout the story, such as Stefano’s pointed effort to end the ongoing feud between families involved in Don Achilles’ murder (which only succeeds briefly before the explosions turn from fireworks to gunfire).
Thoughts on Prologue of MY BRILLIANT FRIEND by Elena Ferrante
Elena’s spiteful telling of their history begins without hesitation. There are several virtues to this beginning. The most jarring is certainly the discovery that neither Lila nor Elena, our beloved protagonists which we were somehow rooting for before even starting the prologue, are very nice. Lila has left her only child is anguish; Elena is equally cold.
Little Daylight Sample
Little Daylight is a fairytale conceived by George MacDonald, mentor to Lewis Carroll. Hey, if Disney can take old fairytales and adapt them into new stories, why can't I? Here's an except of a play I've written of the same name. The important bit is this: so much of what I'm reading and watching and surrounded with is dark and pessimistic and miserable. I recognize and appreciate the value of airing our trauma and unhappiness into a creative space, but when I sat down to write this play I had one goal: I want to write something happy.
Sabrina Parra Díaz 