Poetry is conceit; emotional, intellectual or technical.

We all stared, somewhat shocked and mostly disgusted.

Long ago, this painter Brussegem had hung the dark mantle of Outcast Artist” over his shoulders—and over his life, he formed a strict philosophy—Art and Only Art—and protected his solitude and artistry with all his moody might,....

The woman lit a cigarette and sat on the edge of the bed, crossing one leg over the other. She took a long drag, tilted her head back, paused. Her eyes flicked to the NO…

We cannot cross the river until it freezes. Bekker predicts January. For food we gather leaves, berries and roots from the thick forest behind the cabin. Suarez boils what we find into a revolting paste that we spoon into our mouths with dirty fingers.

Sora and Ciel stood before Dean Morden inside his office. It felt weird to the girls looking at him sitting behind Madam Mayweather’s desk

“Oh yeah?" I said to Stendhal. "I found six references to women's eyebrows in Travels in the South of France. That's all you think about!”

happily fling Molotov cocktails// against ICE agents in armored vehicles/ and sing the pain of their burning deaths/ as triumph against asininity.

I don't think you understand. A sad boy doesn't just die inside, slowly, he becomes withdrawn from certain types of lovely youthful reasoning out loud, accustomed to feeling what is expected, graded, just to be allowed to survive another…

"That zit on your forehead just won't go away, will it, sweetie?" she adds as she brushes her daughter's bangs downward.

It was a strange mood, unfamiliar, not one of her usual “I'm busy wrestling with my personal demons” type of moods. She'd been steeped in it all day and I, like a shipwrecked victim reaching out for any piece of flotsam…

I'm waiting for your voice. My trembling hand is so damp the phone could slip from my fragile grasp at any moment. Each ring burns in my ear and makes the washing machine in my stomach tumble faster and faster. After three rings, or it could be four, or forty, I hear…

I await, here at Sandymount Strand / There's a stony bed and moistened sand / Couples dance away into futurity / With their dogs upon the shore

Colton nods, without words, understanding the significance of every word that the Old Man has uttered, knowing that in the end, given enough time, we all go down that lonely corner, to embrace the darkness, wishing to be cured of our sentiments.

#2 The Typewriter Inside You by Harmon Gentle—I found this one at a garage sale when I was 15. Intended as a manual for sharpening one's typing skills, by the third chapter it became obvious that Mr. Gentle's sanity had slipped, and that rather than mastering the…