One day over a hardscrabble dinner of gristly beef and lumpy mashed potatoes, his uncle looked up at him and said, “Kee-rist, boy, school’s gonna start any day now. And winter ain’t far behind. I can’t keep you here. We gotta figure out something for you.

I’d made that shot a thou­sand men­tal times, and when it counted, I missed. It hap­pens.

I loved baseball and still do, but if you saw me at eleven years old you would not mistake me for that kid over there, the one with even an ounce of talent. Mine you’d measure in atoms.

Every year I have a birthday, and every year another of my friends succumbs to cancer or suicide. That's a shitty gift. That is devoutly not to be wished.

A friend's remark about androgyny, "it's overrated," she said.

They run nonstop for weeks. Between traffic stalled cars. Down forgotten subways tunnels drilled long ago in the cold earth. Past burning sugarcane fields.

After her grief had subsided, the wife felt immediate relief. / Suddenly she was free to abandon or pursue loneliness

her skin was delicate, fragile, that old woman skin that appears to be translucent.the rip caused by the knife opened it up like tissue paper. blood welled for a moment, then poured out with real purpose.this was the delight he found in old ladies.. the scent of their…

His father whistles The Torreador's Song in the kitchen; Mirko smells bacon.

It was the losers’ bar in my neighborhood.

This energy said, "Fuck it, I am going to be the fucking sun." In it’s language it sounded more like "Khershhhhhhh Hhhhhhhhhhh Zirshhhhhhh."

“The King,” he paused, pursed his lips, looked across the crowd of eager and fearful citizens of Ki, “is dead!”

Koo ate the sad, bitter pills just so she wouldn’t have to try and make small talk about La Donna’s deformed, retarded kid.

“Have the cousins arrived?”

My story begins where so many have ended, strapped fast to a cold table, just moments from a lobotomy needle and anything resembling the man that I am.