Mmm... I want ILB.

After Pete and his daughter Aya finished the course work to become certified masseuses, they entered the hotel meeting room for the final... more

 I breathed in deeply, not knowing at the time I was breathing in the lives of all those at the café, those I sat with just moments before, molecules sliding from the rubble of the explosion into my lungs, bones nestling behind bones.

Spring was flipper-fitting season for young Olympic hopefuls like Jeannie. Although it was only March, Jeannie already had her... more

Peter first met (well, you know. "Met.") Leona when he was five years old. It would be thirty years before he would... more

I want to call you and sing the Prince song, discuss the proportions of his tiny frame, imagine his tongue together, stay on the phone for hours like we used to. Those days are gone. 

My roommate lives her life differently. This is what she claims. 

Antarctica wants you dead. The research scientists bundle you up in outside-resistant clothing and put you outside the insulated... more

You are obsolete. The cashier in your neighborhood’s grocery store is obsolete.  The typesetter—who placed each individual letter for the headlines of the morning paper—is obsolete. Tollbooths barely require someone to stand sentry in the middle of the highway to collect coins anymore and soon enough lasers will replace surgeons in operating rooms as well.

She had different stories for different people. “Lost it in a hunting... more

I imagine Temperance Brennan's annual gynecological exam might go something like mine: If you're not finding time to eat, you must not be having a lot of... Are you seeing anyone right now?

* * *

I forgot; you were naked. Don’t mind me, I’m only naked. You said you didn’t have any clean clothes. Not a single unsoiled article.

You smiled before you saw the blood. / Pointed your baseball bat / At an invisible rustling, / And put your finger to your lips.

I lie night after night
With the only one I hate more than myself

Artisanal meth is amazing

How we pretended to be other people for fun: “Hi, what’s your name?” she asked. “Bill,” I said. “Bill, huh? I can think of a lot of words that rhyme with Bill.”

And here comes this very small girl – this fairly attractive small girl – getting real thug with me suddenly. Suddenly thug. This petite white girl getting suddenly thug. And she physically pushed me saying “Wrong fucking pile!” She was angry about this pile. 

If one person can take from this that it is not about privilege, it is not fiction versus poet, it is none of the internet fashions of complaint and it is not anonymous (even though I am any-goddamn-pleasing-way anonymous with or without my fucking name) ...

My fault for side-stepping the usual male pretense at sensitivity or smug confidence of manipulation. I’ve saved it all for this fucking Lish frottage of a sentence.

It’s a hot day in Oklahoma, and Kurt Russell has been working hard. At what, we’re not... more

“I don’t understand anything about the... more

The whitetail flit across the road, tails raised in greeting or surrender, a herd—a small stampede—crossing this rural... more