When I clock out at the end of the night my chit says I worked over 10 hours. Before I leave big brother tells me he has a great idea: walk like you need to get to the toilet. I see chef in line at a McDonalds. 

"Whipped" and "Kansas"

I’m on a date with this dude, the guy’s gorgeous, and ripped, skin all sunburnt like a surfer with... more

We are intrepid travellers hunting – or rather haunting – the square. We are exhausting the place of its details.

You elaborate: Christmas just makes people emotional. "No," she says, raking at her hair with French-tipped nails. "I don't think so."

We are fifteen as haev no idea
what our bodies can do...

Scream and jump out, I said, watching us slide toward the water, letting the safety belt hold me in place.

We’re riding the red line south when Xue suggests stopping in Chinatown to purchase thousand-year eggs. I picture her... more

In the dark before sleep...

One house had a parrot that never stopped talking.

Also, every time they flew and he had that damn backpack on, he forgot that the space he occupied extended beyond his physical back. He whacked bystanders in the shoulders or the chest, and, at least once, the face.

get a tattoo of a horse
because you feel good about yourself

Before that, the father had been away. It was a time that many fathers were away.

The bracelet tells someone where she is, honey. But it doesn’t tell you why.

"Poetry," "Cleaning the House," and "Leaving Again"

1. Don't put the straw in your drink at QuikTrip and you can buy it with the food stamp card.

They bang their silverware and take turns slamming the toilet seat. They drag their garbage bins too late to the curb and leave them abused by stark weathers all week. Shaker knows there is an awkward progenitor situation.

"Friendship & Other Unknowable Places" and "Diagnosis at the Walk-in Clinic"

I have coffee in my cup. I could toss the hot liquid on her and rush through the revolving door to my appointment, make her the slug.

Dixie leaned against the door, feeling the blood rush to one side before pounding it against the wood.

"Train People" and "Leaving Philadelphia"

The porn gets boring. The plants start to die. I call up the daycare and ask for a job that they will not give back to me. He doesn’t come again.

I’d scratch them by stretching out my fingers wide like cheerleading jazz hands and rub them up and down aggressively along our itchy wall to wall carpeted floors.

"I Have No Idea How Tall I Am," "Corner Table," "Everyone Says Things Like," and "In the Future Every Olympian Will Be Gay"

Being Jack’s a guy, he’s also tasked with the act of pulling my ass apart when needed so the Radiation Oncologist, Dr. Katz, a short petite woman of prissy demeanor who does her ass work in civilian clothes, even while wearing heels and a tiny purse strapped across her midsection, can insert her finger.

I paint the dead bird next to my window with my grandmother's travel watercolor set.