688 0 0
|
I care little for innocence. I prefer the breath of dragons to the silhouettes of apes.
|
952 0 0
|
My toes curled together under the pathetic rag of a bedsheet, the frost creeping in through the two-inch deformity of the window on the left wall. I was tempted to sneak a glance at them to insure that they weren't black, but then decided that I'd…
|
791 0 0
|
"You have to be careful you don’t come off sounding like you’re not a good sport, cause good sportsmanship is the most important thing to remember when you’re a cheerleader."
|
989 4 4
|
She smoothed her hair with a hand that should have been the turning pages of a cheap dime-store novel. I watched her from under my eyebrows but kept my head fixed downward, pretending to pay attention to the 6 ½ narrow stiletto heeled black alligator pumps. Not easy to do,…
|
930 0 0
|
“Isril, I won't lose dis child tuh hunger,” Mina said as she rocked her young son to sleep. Noah sat on her lap, head on her chest, and exhaled a plaintive moan that grew softer and softer with…
|
3741 55 53
|
You marched in step from 9 to 5, kept perfect pace, pledged allegiance to enforced mediocrity, until the day they let you go—the day you knew that you were never Buddy Holly on their plane; just another passenger, brilliant but doomed.
|
804 4 1
|
Bum on a Parisian stoop begging
with his big Jackson Pollack
bare head in the rain
The water running in streaks
all over his brain
Reminding him of a painting
He once thought of
Keep going, you’re coming back
again. Get out of the car wrec
|
961 3 2
|
"Who's that?" Carl asked about the man standing near the fence.
"Says his name is Marty Lopez," Jake replied.
"For real?" Carl moved to one side for a better look.
"I know. He doesn't look like a Lopez," Jake said.
|
1094 7 5
|
Forgive the doctor/
his hypocrisy -
|
852 0 0
|
"Great jog today," he said, "But the entire length of the run I'm thinking about ice cream and how good that is going to feel."
|
1342 4 4
|
Momma takes us to the candle store next door where everything smells sweet
as she opens, closes glass lids, lets us lean our faces close, smell pumpkin, lavender,
trees...
|
1167 5 1
|
I lift up my sweatshirt and reach with a full fist into my belly button. This is where the fat comes out.
|
1412 9 6
|
It's because poetry would not do
because the fireflies were alive that night, aflame
|
1234 9 3
|
Remembering his body makes me think of Egyptian cotton sheets dried in the sun. He smelled crisp and clean even after sweating hard. His hair fell in golden spirals down his cheeks, his back, over his forehead, and captured light just like the gilded halos on…
|
1008 4 0
|
Living in the dark ages without language,
I think I’ve been dead long enough.
You can come out of the vast fields of night.
Come out of the vast galactic storm without light.
The darkened dreams
that speed past with their false and brightly lit
|
918 6 5
|
Then it gets worse—this reading of books—I go to the café and can only read a minimalist there, one crouton at a time.
|
1398 0 0
|
Was he really a Secret Service guy? No time to think now! Quick as lightning, Rachel bounded over the sleeping matron and sprinted up the aisle.
|
1184 5 2
|
I’m up to my ass in social media.
|
1160 7 4
|
The marble, it's just there.
I can't explain
how it got there
(or when),
all I know
is that everything
is in that marble.
By "everything,"
I mean every
thing. Your breakfast?
It's there.
|
672 0 0
|
A Toyota Prius gas-electric hybrid rolls by, and Kimberly goes to work. “Hey, baby–wanna give your sheepskin a workout?”
|
597 2 1
|
Pigeons are really the souls of what were once beggars
in the endless squares of Paris, Venice, or Jerusalem.
They are born with the soul of a beggar
attached to them.
It is stuck beneath their wings.
They cannot fly without it,
and they ar
|
871 0 0
|
I like you,But I don'tLove youAnd that bitchDon't love youEitherWhy don't you loveMe?I only love my sonWhat do you hate About me?I hate your nervousnessLack of confidence,I hate your glasses,U asked too many QuestionsReally?Yeah, reallyWhat do like about me?I like…
|
1508 7 4
|
Juniper Mélange was a cat person, not a dog person. Truly detested when she perceived falseness in another person. She wore glasses and drank tea. Had dark straight hair and light skin. She dressed conservatively and would watch the sky most days. She wou
|
1455 3 3
|
I know I’m slipping
into my mother’s skin. I answer the phone
with her voice; her hands grind the coffee beans.
And who is this listening to NPR in the morning
while the fresh-faced girls in the neighborhood trudge toward school,,
peonies han
|
1462 3 2
|
Jesus was a cancer survivor and possibly a super nova.He ran with the Wolves of night time, with the women of the paleolithic era and hunted for meat when the blood didn't drip to their feet and create veritable red shoes like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz.I am no longer in…
|
903 4 2
|
It is absurd to think that a cockroach will wake up one day as a human. And it is certainly surreal to imagine that a fat pigeon in Paris, New York or Rome, say, or even Prague, will one day take up a pen and begin writing poetry, or wave the wand of phil
|
3771 7 3
|
In my room is my младенец,
I mean my little one. She is hungry,
Sucking dry air. My молоко, that
Says milk, is not good. I can’t make.
|
1016 11 5
|
Hardly a soul could pin him for creating the vehemence that found a streamule to her pen if she wrote in cursive or a fanjet to her keyboard if she typed quickly and satisfyingly in print, employing eight fingers and two thumbs—
|
1091 2 1
|
The kitchen is full of old girlfriends. I avoid them. They are munching on cheddar and sharing stories I'm sure I don't want to hear.
|
1326 4 4
|
And you lean forward and all of that caffeine anxiety rises up in your throat, the pressure in your jaw, a series of weights and pulleys on your teeth and at the back of your mouth. So when you open your mouth to talk, no sound is made, only the sound of
|