Every atom in my body pulled me towards the door of the sports bar, urging me to sit on the closest stool, sink into the cracked vinyl, and drink. And drink and drink and drink. Order a shot and let it rip through me like a chainsaw, spilling my guts all over the floor. … Continue Reading
There was nothing to slide off her finger. No reason to reach out to Toby’s empty hand, turn it up, and set something in the middle of his warm palm. Nothing gleamed in the dim winter light. The ring was on a baggage cart, on the tarmac beyond the window, packed in Toby’s suitcase. But she knew it was coming.… Continue Reading
Buster and Buddy, the inseparable pair. “Look,” people would say, “There goes Buster and Buddy.” At least that was how whoever gave them their nicknames imagined it at the outset, when they were still too young for the outlines of who they would be to come into focus.… Continue Reading
Phonesy Johnson’s child, Phineous, is such a DICK!, the blog’s caption read. He wants to play ball, but Dad is CLEARLY so busy reporting to GOD that he cannot spend these 30 minutes providing his undivided attention.… Continue Reading
None of them understood. You slap on a price tag and people want what they don’t need, which was why so much ended up on the street. How many bottles of $60 wine had he shipped that weren’t any better than the $20 bottles? Just because some guy probed a delicate glass with an obscene nose saying, …cherries, blackberries, vanilla, cigar… old shoe leather. It didn’t matter. People were easily duped.… Continue Reading
A due date is like the first day of school. Waiting for it so long. Stuck dull on the end of summer, looming.… Continue Reading
As they spoke, Solomon made a reference to a year he’d spent in prison, as though this were common knowledge.… Continue Reading
In a dream I conjured Cindy Pickens in a field of fire and lilies. She wore her apron and a frilly blouse before her clothes popped off like bubbles. Naked, she was Shannon Tweed, Queen of Cinemax. Her skin frothed and spat with heat. I woke up seething, convulsing. I gasped at the darkness above my bed while her burning image floated close.… Continue Reading
It brings with it roughnecks reckoning with reality they were warned against long before they laced up steel-toed boots and lit lights on their hard hats. They know the dust cough. They know how the mine spits them out until the cold wind pushes them stumbling in the dark with their bottles to the glass yard.… Continue Reading
The sun responds, transiting notches away, farther this time. Rozie vapes a few more puffs and sits up. She wraps herself waist down with a slit saffron sarong. Her top part mostly bare, can barely keep up with the tremors.
… Continue Reading