Do you ever make pieces of origami, folding a sheet of paper over and over intentionally? Do you feel silly? Do you question each fold, or trust that the folds will add up to the frog or the bird you were promised?

Due to a clerical error, 265 students registered for my English 101 course. 

I am all the way turned on; turned up. Nerve-hiss-skin. There is a story here, and I am running interference.

First, he ARRIVED – like the swans at Capistrano, or aliens in the desert, or, more likely, a flaming dessert.

“Who is that?” my... more

It isn't natural / for a thin stem with fruits / to sprout up – / they're heavy, / they're supposed to just hang.

You don't know it yet, but I gave you bad directions, and now I can't find you. For this, I am truly, truly sorry.

I dream myself into a field that is lime green. There is a branch in my lungs, and I can’t love like I used to. This is a ghost story.

We’re all going to be late, for everything, and the people we keep waiting will add this to their mental list of evidence that we are not careful or observant or accountable.

Welcome to Hobart Photo Stories, a one stop shop for photos that will excite the brain, the eye and the... more

They may even remember that while the game licensed team names, logos, and stadiums, and specifically licensed Ken Griffey Jr.'s name, statistics, and likeness—they did not license the names of Major League Baseball's other 699 players.

After thirty days in rehab, you are “coined out.”

Michael has awesome hair. Here is Michael, my husband, from many many years ago. See how great his hair is?

Admittedly, he has... more

Dress Code

I’ve got this friend who’s passionate about dress codes. Her name is Sharon. Most of the jobs I’ve had, when it’s come... more

When I stay over at Amelia’s there is a poster of Devils Tower over her bed and we trace the volcanic neck with our fingertips instead of sleeping. I give Amelia a Xanax and floss between each of her teeth.

For instance, I had the line “But I was talking about lightning” in my head for the first line of an essay, but I had no idea what that essay was about. So I started to write about lightning and do some Wikipedia-ing, and eventually the idea of looking at trauma and human relationships through the metaphor of lightning started to emerge. From there, I just followed my brain around as the essay started to form.

Radio Tower, 4yrs old

The radio tower had big cones on top. We were in the car and I said to mom, “What are those?” She didn't... more

Cave In
Album: Jupiter
Released: August 8, 2000
Hydra Head
Length: 44:10

My friend Beth was blamed for everything I ever... more

texas was underwater, florida had been evacuated, and the eagle creek blaze—started by fireworks in September of the hottest Summer on record—filled the skies for hundreds of miles with the forest’s ashes.

A sister in place of a father wasn’t an exchange. I’d had twelve years with a father and none with a sister, and I’d preferred it that way.

I don’t know about heaven, but I hope I find it in these seagrass hills. When I die, I will float here and haunt the abandoned dairy. 

I protested with my body, such as it was. I felt the need to explain. “I’m staging a protest.” I fluttered hard. The foe smelled of gas.

The Gemini

It would be a lie to say I always went to bed with one brother
and woke up with another—that at night he placed... more

I sip red wine and weed / and deface anything that looks like me

Had a little accident last night Stevie, my boss yells. Tote fell over in the back of a truck. Someone's gotta clean up all that fish. I turn my head from him. Stare off out passed the end of the harbour. Where the horizon and Lake Eerie meet. Dissolve into one another. The breeze in my hair. Thinking why me?

It’s enough just to know that they’re out there. .

People became a mob and the mob circled her, gnashed their teeth and lashed their arms as if to say, Dance! Dance! Dance! They wanted a concert! Another song! Dance, Connie, dance!