1943 7 2
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Sylvia Plath killed herself while her children slept upstairs, breakfast ready at their doors. Anne Sexton wanted to do it, but Sylvia got there first, making Anne just a little less remarkable, although she tried often enough, her death like a song put on repeat. …
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19433022
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I wake up in the morning and write her name on the white paper napkin I always place in front of me at the kitchen table as I have my first cup of coffee. I write it throughout the day. Twelve or fifteen times. I've done this for exactly twenty-three days. I always…
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194242
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“Can you do something about that those four stanzas of three lines each at the bottom of the basement steps?” my wife asked.
"That's a villanelle I'm working on."
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194254
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Valeria never whistled. Nor did she approve of people who did. One thing she had learned in her sixty-seven years was that people who whistled were crass. Butchers whistled. So did peasants.
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194200
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She saw mana from the pendant floating to her chest and its resonance pulsed with her heart, yet it felt empty. Unaware of what she had done, she reached out to it, thought of a name, and called for it.
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194275
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You ran so quickly for a while no one could find you. Finally, you sent us a report. You had retreated to the sea, you had your legs stitched together, you became a mermaid and were applying to join the school.
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19421812
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Go to your room. Children are meant to be seen not heard.
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1941168
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I didn't go to China, however. I would have gone there in debt wearing their clothing. I was afraid to owe even $4,000 (what I still owe) living overseas.
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194193
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I laugh too loud cause the world looks good that way and for a minute we both make funny sounds just to exercise our vocal cords and see how close we can come to the line without crossing.
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194120
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At first she kept repeating "I don’t know why he's doing this" as if the cops thought she was mixed up in it somehow. When they convinced her that all she needed to do was talk to her brother and tell him to give himself up, she looked hopeless.
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194163
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when the devil dies he divides enough evil for everybody
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194010
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I've been struck with a bout of writer's block, struggling to get pen to page or finger to keyboard....So I make paper airplanes.
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194074
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194011
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You are fishing in a coffee cup. (Your fishing pole is a record player.)
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19401510
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"The cops are just doing what they're being paid to do."
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19402218
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he makes his way back / to the ocean, back to the popcorn, back / to the pinball machines
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19401613
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The Bond Trader begins his morning with coffee and a hit of LSD.
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1939128
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Cousin Rudy pulled up a cod /
out of season /
we were rigged for haddock, /
it was dressed for the weather
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193886
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It was my grandmother's idea of a joke, but I never realized she was joking when she repeated it every Thanksgiving. She would sit at the head table just before Uncle Leon would carve the bird and ask, "It's an American holiday. Shouldn't we be roasting an eagle…
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193899
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feeling obligated to write/ is like feeling/ obligated to fuck.
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1937106
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I'm rushing from the office, wanting to catch the 6.05, skittering down grey, commuter-laden streets, and I turn into the plaza and see the stupid fucking dancing couple. They are usually only there Fridays and weekends, catching the tourists on their way into Covent…
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1937106
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It was fun, until he started winning every time.
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193710
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The screams snapped Akane out of her thoughts. She looked up and there was a dragon, all alone. It flapped its bat like wings, stationary in the sky.
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193721
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It was a subtle change. Jeffrey's grandmother was never graceful. Her figure was like a garbage bag filled with rounded masses of leaves and the unexpected angle of the odd stick, the entire shambling affair draped in soiled and yellowed hand-knit clothing…
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19372210
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The Count was used to boredom but he had reached the point where he was even bored with boredom.
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193601
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The teachers who get caught propositioning male students are always wholesome family women. This is why I have repeatedly called for regular round-ups of wholesome family women before another young man’s morals are corrupted.
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19361311
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For those of you with a position cemented firmly to the contrary, I happen to think I have a great face, actually. My face, maybe I talk about my body a lot, but my face is pretty great, really it is.
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193521
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Jimmy Gollihue awoke to the howling of a bloodhound ...
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193534
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My tongue is clicking.
I want to act out.
I want an unprofessional bargain.
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193585
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I read the last line and close the book with a smack. “That ends that section,” I tell him. “Coming up is the chapter titled ‘The Ancient History of the Sewers of Paris.'
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