the mother tells her child the flashes at the horizonare fireworks, not bombs, so he will not be afraid.at night he curls by the door or else he follows her to a different place. he is quiet, then. as if he knows the secret challenge.better if he and all the others…

As the music concludes, I'm finally in control of my emotions . . .

When his mother was all dressed up on New Year’s Eve, and his father, even thought they had tickets for the dance, announced to her he wasn’t going to go, Johnny had gone into his room, put on a white shirt, a dark suit, his dress shoes, and a clip-o

Laurel's new bike is powder blue, with silver tassels on the handle bars. Jenny's mouth actually waters at the sight of it, as though it were a fresh loaf of bread or a perfect, juicy orange. “You can ride it if you want,” Laurel…

My eyes are wide open. I look like a graphic novel. My world is black and white. I’m poorly drawn. All sounds have an exclamation point.

1. On the morning of her eighteenth birthday, Eve woke to find herself transformed into a gigantic chess piece made of zeros and ones.2. Eve gazed so long at her smartphone that she found herself falling into it.3. She fell for a time that may have been short or long or…

We entered the castle at dawn. The dim light feebly illumined an array of antiques and medieval weapons. Bats dangled from the high vaulted ceiling, enfolded in membranous wings. What were once chandeliers radiating light were encrusted with webs and the ancient wax…

“Okay,” I say, “but my point is the only way you’d ever know if someone really loved you is if they put their life on the line when it counts. Otherwise you gotta take their word for it.”

"Possible candidates for reading to a crowd" the subject line of the email to myself read. You see, writing can be hard - or writing can be easy. But writing for a crowd you'll see is something else entirely.

My mother gave her all to convince him to be a politician. My sister begged on bleeding knees for him to give her head. I just needed somebody to help me find things.

What the spaces say// can be heard in the short/ and longer silences

the sun is quiet like the mountains, the birds except for their wings

ghosts of the previous owners who leave a trail of whispers

My bones will rob me blind, corpuscle by corpuscle.

They called him “Albert, the Human Armadillo,” and he was. Rows of hard scales ran down the course of his chest, and he was studied and biopsied by doctor after doctor. “Psoriasis,” they said. “Or, eczema.” They prescribed ointments and oils that left him