2420 23 7
|
I made him stop at an AM-PM. We bought a bag of barbecue chips and a yellow rose. Those days, we were testing our keels, sloshing against whatever rose most wicked. On the way to Beth Anne's apartment, we passed a man on the shoulder heaving a couch back
|
241952
|
If I was going to liberate myself from my marriage to Rosie, the first step ought to be to liberate myself from my wedding band. That wasn't going to be easy. Along with the more prominent rolls of fat I'd been accumulating, my ring finger now bulged over the upper…
|
241700
|
“I lay in bed every night and wonder who is lucky enough to go home with you.”
That was all it took. She was. You are. Let’s face it: anyone that poses that question is.
|
241761
|
It Is Not Gravity Which Pulls Us Down Only these tired neglected gods still wander the floor of the universe, sifting joylessly through the detritus that lies there: the fragments of fallen planets grown so heavy with sadness they had lost the will to spin…
|
24161312
|
We have no more leaders, only rulers who live in another country. I don't ask why my cousin's hand is bandaged, what he's been burning, what's tarped in his truck.
|
24162312
|
Down cellar, my father showed me where he kept his beer stash. It was in a cubbyhole under the bulkhead, where Mom never thought to look.
|
241532
|
There’s no obvious difference between two years ago and now but it’s not the moment to contemplate the reason for the racket or why it took so long. Instead, it’s the time to renounce atheism and thank God that the noise has finally finished
|
241596
|
In the evidence of broad daylight, in the secrecy of darkness, in drizzling rain that teased the embers, Annabelle worked hard.
|
241452
|
Rowan’s arm burned and throbbed like the center of a neutron star as it went critical for minutes turned inside-out like hours. Standing in a wall, then huddled underneath the couch, she danced around the rim of consciousness, ripping at the seams of her
|
2414106
|
So when they shake a finger, when they yell, she remembers Miss Whalen saying, “It’s not for keeps.”
|
241352
|
Instead of these gew-gaw ‘signs’ you waffle about, I will give you reality
|
24131811
|
The hairs on my arm lift with the breeze; a haunting breath from the open window carrying night-scented stock from the black-shrouded garden.
|
241395
|
Janice liked me being in the closet while she brought dudes home from the Mack. We both liked it, but sometimes, sitting on that folding chair for that twenty minutes among her clothes, all perfume-stanky and leather-smell, it felt like the whole world wa
|
24133718
|
list:
almond message oil
almond sunset tea
dark chocolate 80%
dry rhubarb soda
lavender bath oil
musk candles
red light bulb
|
241200
|
“We need to figure out dad’s funeral arrangements.” Jack’s voice was monotone, as if it wasn’t sure whether it really existed. He paused for a moment; it lasted either a split second or a day. He couldn’t tell.
|
2412117
|
She was the blonde one and the dark-haired one and the one with curly hair and the one with straight hair, the one in the long scarf and even the boy with the camera.
|
241121
|
At first I thought maybe I was dreaming, or hallucinating from the lack of sleep and a high altitude. I peered out of the small window and thought I saw a man walking stark naked along a path maybe twenty feet from my trailer. He walked briskly into a one
|
2411107
|
I. Happy Ending? Why Not! My wife and I got divorced and my little dog died and I decided I'd had enough of Seattle, so I hopped a boat to Belize, and soaked up the sun and gained back some weight and, by God, I got happy again. And I met this cool…
|
24103823
|
The last time he saw his psychic, she told him you're gonna die within six months.
|
241075
|
The cat's on the floor fussing with the plastic bag from the liquor store. There are tiny scratches and bites on my hand. The TV is fully concerned with liquor-induced violence. "These people are thirsty." I'm the same, but my needs are met. Prohibition's over. …
|
241051
|
He didn't think there would be girlish confidences, hopes, dreams but he is shocked, appalled, by the little boys aging at ten-speed, already wizened old men ready for cancer and heart attacks with toy trucks in their hands, skeletal women beloved by men
|
240955
|
You want to be there, but not noticed. Alive, but not too alive. Because that's how you feel every day. Like an apology with legs.
|
240996
|
This is a fairy tale. There is a princess who is not a princess but we will call her a princess because every fairy tale has a princess. Her name is Tanya. She's the daughter of a mechanic and a housewife. She has two brothers and two sisters. She is the middle…
|
2408108
|
(Originally appeared in Fourth Genre, April 2011) The waiting room of the Rosenfeld Cancer Center in Abington, Pennsylvania is my new home away from home, and I'm eager to prove it. When I step on the ridged, black rubber welcome mat and the sliding…
|
2408198
|
It has scent, your heat, of jonquils and lime, of spices seared in a hot black pan.
|
24072319
|
“Mescaline occurs naturally in our bodies, you know,” I said.
|
24072915
|
What I wanted was long-in-the-sheets sex...
|
24072417
|
|
240422
|
It's the way an earnest five-year-old boy pronounces every single letter as he whispers. Something about octopuses, something else about peas.
|
2404207
|
Well, it’s a cold dance we dance this morning. You are up at the crack of dawn and the bed is empty even before you leave. I pretend to sleep so I can revel in the delicious morning ritual I know will be ending soon. I hear you brew coffee, shower, tal
|
