You gave me all of the power, and none of the power.

Forgive the earth that’s got a hold on you. Forgive the trees. Forgive yourself, you were damaged goods. Therefore, quit looking for the expected. Look instead at the unknown as a fact. Describe it. Use great detail. And

A small flame of gossip began at one end of the table and began to spread like a wildfire at the first mention of Diane Morgan’s name. “That little red-faced slut stole my boyfriend from me,” I overheard Maryann Blakely saying. “I could have been Prom Que

Once we got to my house, Lynda had everything drinkable in the house open and in everybody's hands before I knew it. She tossed down a bottle of my father's beer, then started on a bottle of whiskey that was open. She took a straight mouthful and offe

"Stop it! Don't fucking touch me! I fucking hate you! I'll call the cops! I'll never forgive you for this!"

I spend my time sitting on the back step—poison oak reddening my arm—under the eaves, waiting to escape.

Prospero's in his cell and I'm in mine. He drowns his books, I'm drowning in mine. He exercises his power–I'm powerless to exercise.

The only magazine Auden subscribed to was Scientific American, a publication I had previously scorned as the trade journal of pre-med students and Nobel Prize winners.

No one believed me when I told them this: I took all of my novels and tossed them into the fire.

I wanted only to be still, to become a rustle for a moment of papery fall leaves sighing past one another on their way to the funeral pyre in the front lawn, sweetly fragrant with the scent of death and inevitable decline, fearless in their annihilation, incandescent…

The bullet went past his right ear and a little star appeared, twinkling in the mirror, a small hole in its middle, before the boom of the shot filled up the bar. He put his straight up Grey Goose martini down on the bar hard enough so th

That was the year I got my Daisy bee-bee gun for Christmas....

Can anyone remember what the Great American dream was?

Marcel Proust had never been to a big-box store before. He was dazzled by the sheer size and scope of the store and the seeming impassivity of the shoppers. So many products, so many shelves, such strangely intriguing examples of the human condition. The people seemed…

Woman bites into pearl, finds baby oyster. Woman bites baby oyster, finds baby pearl. Woman blows on baby pearl, it begins to grow. Woman gets excited. Now we’re getting somewhere, she says.