.

We have no more leaders, only rulers who live in another country. I don't ask why my cousin's hand is bandaged, what he's been burning, what's tarped in his truck.

Amyra pressed her hands on the brick wall and rubbed it. She thought about hanging something on there, but she did not have the tools to make a hole. In fact, the thought of having a hole in the wall would be enough.

You are fishing in a coffee cup. (Your fishing pole is a record player.)

***Emily Fusselman and her noted rabbit were a side note metaphor in Philip K. Dick's novel, "Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said," in an attempt to parallel the existence of no longer being rationally alive and accounted for, as the main character is finding himself (Jason…

In the dugout I listened to a hell of a lot of Muddy Waters.

My dad came in the door sweaty, and covered in blood. He stood there in the kitchen. My mother said, "Don, you never spend time with the boy."

It’s a little known fact that eels are often lost in translation – only the spotted variety, not the striped or the common and certainly not the electric.... I think about that lovely hippie girl and her knowledge of eels, sometimes.

The night was not going well. The few people she had encountered had proved noncommittal. Uninterested. Unresponsive, even. "How could this be?" she thought. "This is supposed to be, y’know, Portland! Picked on for being 'Liberal Town' and everything..."

We are young That’s all we’ve got We take drugs We smoke pot You got mugged And I got shot We are young That’s all we’ve got I am cold And you are hot I am bold Our bed’s a cot You got mugged And I got shot Life is cold Lif

There is a hole in my ear hair And it points the way to god The anatomical construction of my drinking sessions Is irrelevant

here at noon and I'm rewriting the ending eating some chocolate covered almonds leaving brown marks on my laptop keyboard

The Army Corps of Engineers spent $92,000 in federal stimulus money on costumes for mascots such as Bobber the Water Safety Dog.

She slaps me and then tries to run away. Tries to. There's light snow approaching on the horizon, a pinkish hue that will eventually erupt into a fury of ice and wind. I can see the cabin from the gazebo, can see the orange glow of the fire through the window on the North…

DOA pick-up from a Motel 6 in Akron.

The thing that really gets you about the house is the hurricane shutters. They're up already, even though it's the end of May, because Buck's uncle is back in Rhode Island for the summer and he's prepped the house on Key Largo like Armageddon is coming.

The empty slip is vacant of the body.