Three people had died on the rollercoaster, each decapitated by a wooden plank. He told her this as the lap bar lowered over them and... more

We'd stood in the rain to watch the fireworks, my girlfriend Linda and I, and it was perfect. It was Boston and it was the Fourth of... more

Dogshit There’s grass growing on the dogshit next-door, under the library mural of the Indian boy with the salmon... more

If only she'd thought to smash, earlier, the infinitive to destroy never occurred to her, never in this careful home of her planning.

WEDNESDAY got off the airplane, spencer landed like an hour ago. either he is in the... more

A trashbag-blue tattoo of a spider stained her left big toe. D-O-O-M read the tops of her other four toes. She had a taste for chicken... more

Some accounting’s underway, composed of chiding, shifts in tone, redirections. Surely one or two rumors eventually craft a context where they’re true. 

Recently I came across a paper I wrote in college at the prestigious University of Florida in 1999 about vengeful ghosts.

I am so many places               lonely. I think I savor it, just me & Canada boundary... more

They all felt it when the house moved, but only Mae made a sound, something small and guttural, something involuntary and low.

The air in the bedroom sags with mist that won’t touch anything. It hangs around the built-in bed, and stationary lamp, and my sisters and Ma. I can’t be in there. The noises are terrible, and the haze smells like evergreens. It makes me homesick.

I could never / be a girl who wears a bikini top in place of a bra / like all the other girls in South Florida, who put vodka / in their Gatorade bottles and were, I think, much happier...

Mother is sitting in the kitchen with the Bible and a fresh stack of paper. A cigarette smokes in the ashtray and the sink is full of dishes. “It’s not what you think,” I whisper to the boy I have brought home. Later I will suck his thoughts dry. 

According to Ronnie, the small man in the black shirt, I am indeed the world's most... more

Family Album, Romance and Circumstantial Evidence

In one of the last scenes of High Fidelity, John Cusack drinks a beer. Actually, he... more

Bean cures hetero monogamy of squareness

Inside the restaurant two beams of sunlight hit Spencer’s table at seemingly impossible angles. They meet on his butter dish, which has a single olive pit in it. It seems like outside the sun could be doubled.

Once, I heard a boxing coach say you don’t punch a thing if you really want to achieve your objective—which is pure harm—you punch through. Since that day, I have often thought of the other side.

It’s not unheard of now for people to be replaced by look-alikes.  Troubled people, mostly.  Unhappy people.  

Lone Star bottles were a dollar that night, and a leather-clad, hair-shaking woman howled “Whipping Post” on the... more

A man's eyes dilate when he climaxes. This is not a graphic metaphor of the soul opening up. This is an animal... more

I have stolen this prayer from my friend Giancarlo Ditrapano.  

In December 2013, Brooklyn Nets Assistant Coach Lawrence Frank was "reassigned" by... more

Why choose. / I might not // sometimes: I need / to forget I was born, // eliminate that / from what I’m thinking about