The poetry and prose in Capsule Stories Spring 2021 Edition: In Bloom explore the rebirth and renewal that comes with spring. Read about flowers growing and blooming, about you growing and blooming. Read about plants growing where they shouldn't. Read about blossoming new love, budding after a cold winter. Featuring writings by both established and emerging writers, Capsule Stories Spring 2021 Edition is the perfect book to pick up on a bright spring day.

In Bloom

You are walking down a sidewalk in a park you haven't visited in years. There are too many people, kids running up and down a small grassy hill playing tag with their siblings, adults standing on the pavement. From the top of the hill you look down at the playground, monkey bars with paint barely hanging on. There are too many fingerprints, too many places that were meant to be touched, too many kids sliding down a plastic staticky slide. You take a few steps, and before you realize where you are, you're on the swing set, swinging back and forth through the air, your hands gripped tightly around the metal chains. You throw your head back and let the wind take you. You jump and stick the landing on the rubber floor. Your partner waves at you from the top of the hill. He knows that you're smiling.

As you run back to him, you hold out your hands. Sanitize them. You refuse to touch anything until you can wash your hands at home. But the swing reminds you of something you've been missing. Something you forgot existed, after such a cold winter, a seemingly endless expanse of time with your thoughts. The fog is lifting. The sun is peeking through the clouds. The flowers are starting to bloom.