The sleet has stopped but the cold is something unthinkable. It lends a deathly permanence to the still, heavy darkness. I stand shivering on the sidewalk and look up at the Hollywood sign. I try to

The only noise I hear is the hum of electricity, subtle as the sound of the universe whispering.

Larry David sees me crying about AIDS

I am not sorry about most things I’ve done; I really do try my best to be good.

My opponent was curly-haired and perpetually smirking. Everything around him – his fancy collared shirt, shoes, wristbands, tennis bag – was emblazoned with an Adidas logo

I just thirst for barbed wire
 

shadows cast like heaven’s
hands down over her eyes.

The boys stood in the vacant lot outside the convenience store, which was closed today due to a special occasion. There was even a sign on the door. Armando was getting high again. Stew was quiet.

He’s still rambling about my womanhood, my untapped, ethereal potential, when I reach for a tissue and blow his hot load out of my nostril.

To repeat something can be a form of stuckness. But it can also be an ecstatic cry.

When I ran away at fourteen, I didn’t know
I was listening to an animal urge to find my own way, like all
teens

But her coup de grace was when she started bringing a white boyfriend to our parties. He was a real champion. His name was John.

I did become very close to many people in the McSweeney’s universe. A lot of those people were great, and a lot of them were just ambitious people with no integrity whatsoever.

Dolphins are too good for this world, I think, as I reluctantly, fearfully, kiss one on its domed rubbery mouth while someone snaps a picture.

One day her daughter says to her mom, in front of you, that she wants to go to art school, just like you. And it is the first time you realize, her mom does not want her daughter to be like you.

Motioning the stone girl over, she
deadpans, “It’s grenadine, not blood.”

Walking through the dense forestry of unrefrigerated 24- and 30-packs, Pete was in search of something that would stand out from the rest.

He looks at me a little like how the alley cats look at the mice behind the house, but I don’t mind.

I can’t imagine anything better or worse than whole-hearted devotion.

I try to imagine the various people the specks of bubble gum had belonged to. Try to give them faces and purposes.

When the angel came I was young.

gen x girls grew too cool to touch and millennials gayed the world the rest of the way limp in their piteous attempts to save it.

“I like the way how you wriggle when
Your mind doesn’t agree with your heart”

The hangover was ruining the romance. Last night I woke up a friend and made her drink wine—Chateau 2016. I had to deal with my nerves somehow.

KS

Our translation of home.

He had lost his virginity to nothing less than the beast of the swamp.