When the city froze and the darkness began to arrive ahead of rush hour, my pills worked; Butterfly Hu’s did not. In a double blind trial, you can’t know who gets the miracle, and who gets the sugar.

My face turns to promise more, but my insides are browning.

The latest teen abuse of an ordinary household item? Late-night “lint roller” parties at which boys and girls engage in heavy “feel-up” sessions that can lead to unwanted pregnancies, white slavery and in extreme cases, marriage.

2 sticks soft (like your heart) butter... ... 1 cup crushed (like you) walnuts...

In the beginning the revolution was all motion and energy. When the President for Life resigned motion and energy disappeared with the sounds of clapping hands.

On a ship twice run aground a sailor cranked a rope round a spool bigger than his head. He could see overboard and also the strip of deck on which he walked down to get to the crank. What he noticed most, as always, were the green echoes in the sea foam against…

You’re the girl that would sneak out to poetry readings instead of parties, watching fierce semi-bearded men reading their poems from hand-stapled zines.

Why don't we do it in a yellow submarine?

As Mayumi ran toward the battle, she watched helicopters over the giant centipede explode and rain down on the street below. Lightning bolts, fireballs, and water balls that burst into rain, littered the skies.

Alysia slowed down for a moment. She clutched her head again. She looked up and found herself at a playground. There was a familiarity in the air.

Two fine-young-things scan the menu board of In-N-Out Burger off Interstate 101. Dressed like twins -- hoop earrings, tank-tops and mini-skirts, ballet pumps — you could hardly tell them apart, except for their Cleopatra and Marilyn Manson hairstyles. As they…

Daniel told himself to push. -- push harder than he'd ever pushed himself before. He reminded himself of what his father once told him: don't give in to pain. Be a real man. You can take it.

Azure leaned on the wall outside the gymnasium. She pulled back the sleeve of her blouse and saw the shackle glow. Azure realized that her feet dragged across the ground, leaving behind straight-line grooves on the grass beside the sidewalk.

In row nine, there was a lady on the window seat. Seeing the potential of space between us, I asked, “Mind if I take this one?” “Not at all” she said as if she hadn't a friend in the world, apart from the poor bastard now sitting in seat 9D.

We could kiss under the elder tree, even though it was forbidden, even though we were drowned by the noise of the river and nothing we said was right