1781 12 9
|
the Great Way itself is very smooth and straight,/but folks take to the challenge of rough, wild roads.
|
178165
|
What doesn't kill you gives you great material.
|
178154
|
Max is the color of burnt caramelized sugar
the sweet crust that decorates our bright enameled pots.
|
178052
|
‘Your hands are very clean’ she said to the furniture salesman. His name was Morrison. "After Jim" Morrison Pentworthy. His father specialized in Doors.
|
178033
|
IN BOX 12 OF DD FORM 214, the Department of Defense requires a narrative reason for every military discharge. Mine reads: Continued involvement of a discreditable nature with civilian and military authorities.
|
1780108
|
Wake up, stretch. Check the curtained windows for sunlight or
that dreaded grey frame that forces the covers to come back up
and the alarm clock to be set to ‘Snooze’.
|
178021
|
Jack, man in black, sporting manicured talons, his smile an iced knife.
|
17802118
|
When I died, she said, she was going to have me cremated and put my ashes in the cats’ litter box.
|
1779103
|
“I’ll be damned,” he said. “I never knew where that was.”
|
177920
|
When Elvis died, I felt so empty that I headed straight for Jimmy Choo's, but quietly, with the half-veil of my pillbox hat draped low over my face. I didn't want to draw attention to my vintage Dior mourning outfit, since I normally wear pants, even here. The voices…
|
1779139
|
Things don’t happen here, life is so boring in this little Irish town.
|
1779204
|
In the hotel lobby, the gold light and warmth and flower arrangements were all lies, but they reminded us of spring. We imagined happiness. We checked in.
|
1779189
|
|
177963
|
I am at a wedding with a new girlfriend. The bride is her old college roommate. I don't really know anyone else here. The wedding is being held at a huge estate, located on the edge of enormous cliffs that overlook the ocean. Despite the danger of this precarious…
|
177921
|
With my heart preserved, I shoved a handful of baubles back in its place: some pages torn from my favorite books, a bass guitar string, a butane lighter, a shot of vodka. I stitched myself back up and left the roof in favor of the attic, where I hung my s
|
177800
|
[continued from part one...]After sweeps, my schoolwork started to slip. I had trouble paying attention in class, and my workbooks and tests came back from the teacher marked in ketchup red ink. I had always been a good student, and this academic…
|
177852
|
Jimmy wore a tie to top that torn green tee he toted every day, every other. He smelled of dirt, said he had a feeling we had watermelon somewhere since he caught a whiff from his room inside his house across the street.
|
1778117
|
My dad at the wheel, my mother's ulcer inflamed, she puked her way across northern Alabama that summer, from Huntsville and the rusting rockets to Tuscumbia, the farthest any of us had been west. We drove through raw, blistered towns,…
|
177772
|
Fingers of angry red welts crossed his face and neck.
|
177754
|
You know how it is, one day a good friend sends you this long note telling you how-the-hell they are or aren't getting along in the frigging world
|
1777128
|
In the office supply store on Union, Jeremy, the stock boy, shelves tubs of rubber bands. Tubs with an easy-access pop-top and a see-through container. If Hendy saw these tubs, she would think these particular rubber bands resembled anorexic gummy-worms,
|
177730
|
...it was just my heart stnging through my eyes...
|
177720
|
What the heck to believe in??
|
177763
|
Your finger quivers as it writes
Upon me words in water,
Words I cannot read nor drink
But feel them as you drink
Them with your tongue
|
177763
|
circa the early 90s, Buzz Aldrin and my father had been invited to a dinner at someone's house on Bainbridge Island and gotten lost.
|
177600
|
The year is 2110. The earth is no longer habitual for human beings. The oceans are gone, the sky is red and irradiated and the last vestiges of human civilian are located within the confines of massive barrier cities. For a century mankind has been at war
|
177673
|
i imagined myself & i was phlox saxifrage pompom ranunculus
poppy anemone ornamental onion rattlesnake red ribbon nerine
& i loved the painted tongue
& i wore the rattlesnake
|
1776109
|
She asks me what she should do, and I say I don't know because I'm no good at handling fragile things. She says, let's talk about you. I say I can't - phone signal, you know. She calls me anyway, twice, then leaves a message saying that she just wanted to
|
177510
|
The rustling of the dry leaves when he moved even slightly sounded like thunder to him, and he was sure if any of the other kids from the neighborhood got too close, it was the noise that would end up giving him away.
|
177521
|
The Bike Messenger on Lexington Avenue
Comes to rest
taking a moment
in the falling rain
slowly massaging the
veins at the top
of his bald head
Cracking his neck
while the yellow cabs start
honking behind him
Unwilling to mov
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