“Well, just be careful you don’t get caught with your pants down at the wrong kinda toilet.”

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

Sometimes I want to take the industrial strength green Korean loofah, my sandpapery mitten, and just scrub at my face until huge chunks of flesh tear away and roll into brown fleshy noodles and fall to the floor. Afterwards, I won’t be bloody and flayed, all raw nerve endings and hamburger meat, I’ll be smooth as a peeled egg, soft and firm and pliant to the touch.

                             in response to a student evaluation for a science fiction class, Fall 2018

Student, it’s true—I prefer... more

this poem starts on a tuesday in Kansas

a twister settles in. there is a twister dancing 
in the... more

My heart is open. I can feel it. It’s never open. This can’t be a coincidence. This—

My father’s disjointed rage has shocked him—I’ve seen that look before. He no longer draws from his beer even as Dad tilts his own way up.

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

Cars fly by, the collective braking tantrum screech, the only speech the boy knows well enough. 

Goats and cows’ dreams have little pull yet. Cheese
is still cheese, piston driven milkers likely painful. The future
of... more

                                                           
                                         ... more

Her head is hung in anguish. She has opened the window. She is telling Satan to leave our house. She is upset with us.

I am no longer youthful, but not quite middle aged either. Traces of a younger me are present, though fading.

Read Kevin Mahler's Introduction to his ongoing 6-part "Portrait Series Paralleling Characters in HBO’s... more

Warning: CHOKING HAZARD—Not suitable for anyone who has trouble swallowing... more

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. 

I wanted them to think that I'd developed some sort of heat resistant super power. "This?" I said. "This is nothing," even as sweat dripped down my forehead and into my eyes. 

Fuck couples therapy!

I am split nails, stubs of my fingers. I am a mouthful of dental picks,
the disposable kinds that clog up the ocean and sea... more

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

I had no brothers or sisters, so I received a single white envelope. I took my time opening it. I watched as those around me opened theirs. One of my friends started crying. Breathing deeply, I read mine.

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

It Worked Out a Way to Survive

The Venus he gave me ate another daddy
longlegs. They were still... more

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