It rose gloriously thousands of miles through the atmosphere from its anchor in Lake Michigan, much like William Blake must have envisioned with “Jacob’s Ladder,”  hauntingly efficient and so incredibly alien in comparison to its depleted environment as if to spurn all of the meager eyes that would gaze up in wonder for generations.  

The majority of citizens of the Middle American States stared up in gaping open mouth awe at this physical symbol of separation between classes.  There…

When she asked him to name the most beautiful thing in his day and describe it to her, you listened in, and heard him say there was an old oak down by the dry creek bed and he had sat down under it a while and thought of her, and then he talked her up a ladder to a hayloft, and you could almost see their feet dangling as they pretended to look down at the new baby calves, born the night before.

As you held the phone, you had a vision of boots, a large belt buckle, and a length of…

When they took the hood off, I was blinded by the floodlight set up in the room, once my sense of sight righted I accidentally jumped at the presence of Menschen Metzger, even though I had pursued this meeting for nearly a year, he was not at all what one would expect of the most notorious domestic terrorist in the history of this country, Kaczynski be damned, I mean Metzger was a real life fucking super villain and yet here he stood at an unremarkable height maybe an inch taller…

"I, as your voyeur leader, want to thank you for coming here today on such short notice, at the VFSA, to discuss more about what it's like being a voyeur."

"I became one purely out of boredom, out of nothing to do, and sometimes, things happen for a reason, you know? I never knew it could be so fun watching people touch each other."

"Some of you watched porn and thought," hell, I want to be on the set," but that really isn't an available option, so the next only viable option…

As I was walking along the street, looking at the various shops, I heard a conversation over the phone.

"What?... Hello, are you there? Breathe and tell m... breathe, dammit, now tel..." A nod of the head, another one, "Listen, pull the car before it's too..." As he said that, he pulled the phone from his ear because of a strong noise reverberated through it, then put it back to his ear, "Hey, what did you do? What did YOU DO? TELL ME WH... "

The man stopped shouting and…

"Everywhere you look, sex, sex, and more sex, and the whole thing makes me sick," he said while looking around the internet, ranting to the monitor.

"Even yesterday, as I was coming home from shopping, I saw a couple kissing and holding hands, another couple had their hands on their asses, thinking about that vile thing called sex, uhh."

"Maybe it's something interesting, I don't know, I've never done it, but I don't care to do it, since it's very boring, time and energy…

He’ll tell you his sister is adopted even though she isn’t; he likes to tease her, that’s all - - an asshole brother will - - pounce on the younger, most innocent. In the sleepy car, on trips home from the city, they pass by the house on the hill, a penitentiary shaped gray stone monstrosity and he imagines it an asylum.…

1. I remember wanting to push my brother back into my mother’s uterus when he was born.



2. I remember wanting to be friends with the most popular girl in junior high school but being told I was not cute enough.



3. I remember my first kiss; unfortunately it was an old man—a receptionist in my doctor’s office who asked for a hug and then stuck his tongue in my mouth.



4. I remember vomiting on my first date.



5. I remember getting a job teaching after college…

1. I am sitting in a car with a man who is not my husband.

2. She lay on her back, making a big capital M, with her knees apart, pointing up to the sky, and looked defenseless, like a chicken on the kitchen drainboard, waiting to be stuffed.

3. When she was still an infant, he peered into her crib and said, “I never should have knocked up such a homely woman.”

4. Only the matter of their employment kept the four of them from living next door to each other, from living…

"I don't see why you don't give him a  chance," says Jade in one of her frequent lapses toward the insensitive, without seeing the quick flash of pain in the hazel eyes of Amber.

But I did.

Amber shrugs her golden shoulders and waves off the question, meeting my eyes and pleading with me to keep my silence, keep her secret.

You see, Jade doesn't know what happened, happened that night, that night at the party, the party that was wrong from the beginning, wrong because…

CLASS

My fingers tap on the leg of my desk to keep from shaking and I take perfect notes with my other hand. Neat handwriting, perfect organization, no doodling. 

I need a hit, oh, GOD how I need a hit.

I feel the beginning of  a headache, and at my wince Allie whispers across the aisle "you alright?", and I mouth "cramps" back at her, soliciting a sympathetic nod.

A fix, a fix, a fix, I need a…

Barely conscious, Ryan Lang left his apartment each morning at 6:00 am with a Mel's plastic bag in hand, glanced at Katrina De Luca's door on his way to take Max for a walk around the block and past Bob's Exotic Flowers where the dog routinely had a bowel movement.  

Ryan knew Katrina only from chance encounters at the mail boxes in their building, Mel's sandwich shop where they self-consciously waved, and from watching when she was unaware; he watched her water and sing…

In a smoke-filled room of empty chairs and tables he sang My Funny Valentine only for her.  The ghost of Rico's voice still lingered like expensive perfume, clung to the mirrors, ceiling and stained red sofas along the back wall of the club.  Ernie swept the floor while Linda hummed to herself, took his time so she could perform her ritual.  She played back the tape as she had for years, handsome Rico on stage ten million lifetimes ago, her rejection of an offer she thought bogus, his…

It was still dark when Leslie hit the alarm snooze and pulled the wrinkled top sheet to her nose; she made slow circles on her belly with an index finger and rehearsed telling Tom about the baby again, though she knew it wouldn't bring him home.  

His side of the bed was still smooth, cool and untouched for two months now, and this empty space prompted the same mental scene every morning which made her instantly sick,  that of him lying beside the young woman he insisted did…

John tells me to do it before it’s too late but I already know. I’m such a chicken-shit when it comes to these things; maybe it’s because I’m such a lousy dancer, stepping all over everyone and myself. I can’t fast dance; I hate jiggling around like good dancers do so I try to imagine something fun like being mowed down by a machine gun, riddled full of bullets all jerky like, but the last girl I danced with two-fisted my…

Sometimes, right in the middle of class, a light will go on and I’ll come up with a perfect name for my band. Like during Science yesterday while old Pickell was flying all over the chalkboard like a maniac drawing up charts with colored chalk, this popped into my head: Orange Appeel. I love names like that, like the Beatles Rubber Soul or Strawberry Alarm Clock, Electric Prunes, Iron Butterfly, Moby Grape. Ha, we’ll wear…

Sometimes when it’s real rainy, the stairs get slippery and my books slide around like madmen so I hold tighter going to my locker just in case that asshole Soldersen is waiting by a classroom, gnawing about nothing with some dick friends, ever-ready to knock my books flying all down the hall with that quick sucker punch from behind. He’ll have some witty quip he’s probably worked on all night like, hey goof… which twin…