Charlie Utter (Dayton Callie) and John Anderson; A.W. Merrick (Jeffrey Jones) and Wynonna; Whitney Ellsworth (Jim Beaver) and Trace Atkins; General Samuel Fields (Franklin Ajaye) and Kenny Chesney; Tom Nuttall (Leon Rippy) and Aaron Tippin

It was my senior year of high school, either late 1998 or early 1999. Everyone in my middle-class suburb used landlines. I flipped the phone open and closed, removed the battery, pulled out the antenna then pushed it back in.

Morning smells like horseradish,
dogshit. The squat toilet in my uncle’s house:
too cramped to hold

a breathing thing. My... more

Are you in my head? Do you know what goes on up here? Do you know what’s preceded all that goes on up here? 

A tendril of smoke dissipated above us. She made an opening in her hands, revealing a little frog. Its throat pumped rapidly.

Like the other day, when we got into a fight about who was the luckier between the two of us to have found the other.

When I was eleven, I saw the hip-hop group TLC bust onto the stage of some live TV show wearing giant colorful overalls... more

For Caite’s Sweet 16 we get a couple rooms at the Motel 6 on Cerrillos, not the one downtown with the outdoor pool, the one on the... more

But I did enjoy some of those late evenings of silly stories and joking around with my students and letting my guard down enough to remind them I was a human person with a sense of humor.

Collective Soul have always sucked, but Everclear was once the only band in the world.

On the contrary: I wanted people to see my spectacle. I wanted them to never forget it. Z had wondered: what if the joy of experiment dies with joy itself? If the relationship ends, what if we’re done with it forever?

Case VIII

Mlle X, a fifteen-year-old girl, spent several months, during the winter of 1883,... more

His subconscious deemed them too short, or not steep enough, or their grass was flecked with yellow and brown. He had succeeded in agitating his appetite and wondered what he would have for dinner.

That night, long after your mom goes to sleep, when the house settles, you masturbate furiously in a bed that doesn’t belong to you.

People hung around outside of convenience stores with their hands over their mouths blowing smoke. Stereos played loud Christmas music.

I know brain damage.

When I was 22, my mother was excited for the first day at my new job, but not so much that she couldn’t wait to tell me about the demon that... more

Exchanging one anya-nyelv, mother-tongue, for another is like 
nibbling salted peanuts at the sticky bar top,
unplanned but... more

I loved it immediately, though I was surprised when my mother approved it.  

Hank sucked what was left of his cigarette back in one pull and flicked it into the alley.  The hot light of the ember cartwheeled through the air before disappearing into the snow.

Because of its hardiness and tendency to escape cultivation, these non-native wisterias are considered invasive species in... more

Sometimes I stop talking to my boyfriend for no reason.

Dan Dority (W. Earl Brown) & Travis Tritt; Trixie (Paula Malcomson) & Natalie Maines; Wild Bill Hickok (Keith Carradine) & Alan Jackson; Calamity Jane Cannery (Robyn Wiegert) & Gretchen Wilson; Johnny Burns (Sean Bridgers) & Dierks Bentle

The lyrics say "He never never lied." Is that possible? Or even desirable?

I write this from a subterranean lair packed tight with things: books, CDs, LPs, cassettes, an old laptop or two, and... more