The worst thing about starting fifth grade, besides everyone thinking I’m an actual new student, is that even when I tell everyone I’ve lived in our town all my life and gone to the same schools as everybody else except I skipped up a grade because I worked my butt off all summer, no one even pretends to be impressed or at least surprised. That I…

Acrylic on canvas | 11 x 14”

A car’s tires thu-thunk over the rubbery black trip wire at the oil change, triggering a fat bell, and a group of girls in silver leotards are reflected like spatters of sap in its windows— liquidine, firm, gleaming. It’s a Game Day; they are the girls chosen to split in tempo to the brass band, heel of a front foot sliding over Astro-Turf…