I didn’t question any of it and instead sat motionless as she dropped my wrists and walked away seconds later.

the Griot Grrrls stopped playing their distinctive brand of power progressive acoustic worldfunk at open-mics around campus

My wife is making lunch. I suggest leftover pizza. We are going over to the neighbor’s house for pizza tonight, my wife says. I tell her that’s okay. I like pizza.

There were three other guys on the bus. The landlord (or buslord) let us use the kitchen and bathroom in the house he shared with his wife. I rode into San José City College with the other guys, who were also taking classes there. I remember frigid autum

There was something about her eyes that he couldn't shake. He stood in line, waiting for his chicken finger tenders and one large size 32 oz. cola. No salad (a childhood aversion he had never abandoned), and no mashed potatoes. Friday night and the eve

We crept to the edge of the cliff and stared down at Lake Travis. In this alcove, out of the churn of the speedboats and pleasure craft, the water shimmered, impossibly blue. “Didn’t you used to jump off here back when you were getting high?” Ryan said

Every time Hector left his home he wondered if it was for the last time. It was Monday at 2:45, so he was standing in the bedroom near the tall mirror, staring into his dark eyes. In the past, she would lovingly help him dress with her tiny, perfect fingers. She…

The world—the natural world—was terrible and beautiful in wartime. The leaves shuddered off trees. The pockmarked fields. The fallen brick chimneys. The way the birds heaved together in enormous flocks like rescue missions and then just as…

Maybe she was crying before she got on the coach at Marble Arch, settled in the seat across from me, but by the time we reach Victoria Gate, tears stream down her face, mouth open to receive her own sacrament.Indian, ageless in tasteful floral, a blue sweater despite summer…

Let’s play a game. I’m thinking of a word. Do we have to?

A sturdy and goatish original by know-nothing punks from the sticks. Who cares if we were puny and smelled like fresh milk? For a few years we played and rocked, even turned the Appalachian soundscape a little brown at the edges. At least at first. Mainly

First off, don't worry about the marriage. It ain't gonna last. But don't worry. People will drive you nuts with that tiresome old chestnut, “there's more than one fish in the sea.” Thing is, they're right. Listen. I'm not talking salmon and sea bream…

We can apprehend beauty only/ by framing it with the photographic/ paper’s edge or the novel’s margins/ and bookends.

Walking to Colorado? He doesn't have that kind of time.

“You know who Neil Peart looks like?” Gram said, ignoring Aaron's outburst.