Here is your neighbor, blood forking from her nose, catching on her lip. 

When the men came and dug us up to make way for the next crop, it took a sharp tug or two to free our limbs from where they were entangled with the earth

He’s soaked in sweat already and all he’s done is drive. He must know what they are here to find.

Doris said she would pray for me because I was a kind person and her murdered great-nephew had also been named Kyle.

I always knew I would wash up on an island.

Say, “we should start a band.” Get shut down because everyone wants to sing but no one knows how to play guitar. 

Fuck couples therapy!

When I was thirty I found my birth mom. I’d written her letters but never sent them.

This is a frontier town. Means it’s small. 

Now, if the frontier was moving forward, like they do sometimes, our town might get... more

They gather in the basement to weep together like the boys they are.

It’s after midnight and Jason is awake, trying to ignore the suspicion his twin sister is masturbating on the... more

Nobody knows Ralph has a flask tucked in his front shirt pocket. His blue Hi-Mart vest hides the bulge it makes beneath the fabric.

We amass, aquatic, shoal of the legless. The one grown webby with appendages pads onto the raspy sand, and we surface to see: gleeful and aroused... more

There was a Help Wanted sign at the florists. I had a car, so I walked in and applied. This was a time in my life when I’d decided anyone could do anything. In other words, I was an artist.

He had one of those cool lighters – brushed metal case, tiny chimney with a pattern of holes, bright heat when flint... more

We’re practicing doing timed tests for the AP Language and Comp exam, and the prompt Ms. Anniker gives us is “What Are You Proud Of?” I think immediately, “my chin” 

Amy lives right off Pike beneath a fire escape in one of the many alleys that connect to the street. She’s fifteen years old and loves Madonna.... more

My senior year of high school I kissed a boy in the parking lot of a supermarket and found out the next day that my grandmother had died of liver failure.

That morning, I rolled over with the intention of apologizing. I'd meant everything I'd said, but none of it was enough for me to end anything. It was the hazards of a relationship; I had to decide if I was losing myself or becoming better.

We both found ourselves giggling at the situation three beers deep, both of us watching how our fingers raced to hug the other’s.

I read the article and passed her the phone.

On the drive home, I waited in the dark of the third-row seat for Z to act, reach for my hand or kiss my cheek. But he wouldn’t do anything until college, until I cornered him in the bathroom at a Halloween party and forced the space between us to shrink.

Between beeps and coughs, he begged to be unplugged, begged for them to let his fluid tanks run dry.

Picture a baby shower.

“This one’s kind of a dud,” he said, turning the page. “It’s fine, but I’m not sure where it goes.”
“That’s like me on this path,” she said.
“It’s really not.”