1551 4 2
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155121
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Boys start fires all the time— it's a rite of passage— so when your father gives you the task of setting fire to the family's trash, you don't mind, and when the flames ignite inside the old dishwasher he heaved into the woods behind the house, you…
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155151
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Two summers later, the ritual began. Carol left her house at midnight, having served her husband and daughter a heavy dinner that left them caged in their sleep. She was like a thief working in reverse: she rose from bed with her husband’s first snore,
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155154
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...listening to the ache of errs our mouths had become.
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155043
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Except for the bathroom stalls—you know the one that goes “Here I sit all broken-hearted”—the only poetry in the house is composed by Hazel, recited to her fawning sycophants.
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155010
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“It is not your shoes the Americans complained about!” Roberto yelled, sitting behind his desk, cigar smoke curling around his purple face. “It is your UNDERWEAR!”
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155063
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My poems have appeared in four different publications; three have died shortly after they ran my stuff. Coincidence, or something more sinister?
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155083
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the sound of ashes/ being poured in the kitchen
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1550108
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no more trying to keep / the peace, no more trying / to keep every person happy. / Just this: no more.
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1550106
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Her smile dazzled me from across the room.
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155011
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Puddles—not his real name, as you’ve probably gathered, but the kind of nickname a fat kid got tagged with in our neighborhood—kept stopping short, picking underwear out of his ass or taking a breather. This had the unfortunate byproduct of my crashing in
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155055
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I got an email notification that your relationship status had changed to Single...
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1550136
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155011
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On an overcast and humid day in August, Jesus—with Dad’s permission, of course—decided to make his grand return.
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155064
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It's that day in July when you feel really bummed because you can't find your favorite white sleeveless shirt that you wear on the hottest days of the yea
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15493723
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in a puddle of water, the butterfly rests on a stone
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1549146
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She drinks a chocolate martini. I fold myself up and slide into her pocket.
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154900
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Jaume jumped up from the bar, a wide smile across his face. He hugged his old friend and planted a kiss on his wife's cheeks. He was buzzing from the chance encounter, marveling how life had brought them together after all these years. There had to be a r
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1549106
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If you're a Boomer, your brain is teaming with decades-old Pop tunes that you just can't forget. The real reason you can never remember where you put your keys? Too many of your brain cells are clinging to every last lyric to “Fire and Rain,” “Free…
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154954
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Everyone hoped to be assigned somewhere they could just drop in on their way home for Memorial Day weekend. Someone said, Blake, you’re single. You hate your family, don’t you?
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154976
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“Now we lay you in your grave
There was no way you could be saved
You hate our lord Jesus and he can tell
Which is why you will burn in hell.”
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154900
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I had enough judgment, anger and vengefulness from the people around me in the steel town of Pueblo, Colorado, where I was growing up. I didn’t need more from my God.
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15491711
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maybe a day in deep winter
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154933
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154900
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Only early June, but the heat feels like August. Eleanor and Shelby sit on the front steps of the old Victorian-style house in downtown Los Angeles, drinking homemade margaritas and watching the daylight drain away to dusk. Shelby slaps a mosquito away fr
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154895
|
as distant lights
all must shiver
before joining in
a Milky Way river
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154811
|
A procession of our somber youth—
stoned and stunned and
broken beyond repair—viewed
the boy carved of putty.
The mortician painted him
stuffed him, presented him
to us, the semi-living.
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154800
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Normally, Aidan looked like a guy. A highly feminine guy, but still a guy. He wore his hair in a buzz cut (a turn on of mine), wore tight clothes, worked out so he had a bit of muscle, but nothing over the top. And he was my guy.
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154852
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This is Peter’s office. The room is small, and the wood paneling is painted white. Light colors, Peter has been told, make a room appear larger.
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154887
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You are an heiress to drunks.
The statues of your forefathers stagger,
memorialized by gravity, their faces
half-lit eternally, as they reach into refrigerators
for another something
to keep away the cold empty.
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