There was a new guy that moved across the street from me, a new neighbor, and every time he saw me on the front porch puffing away, he asked to bum a smoke. It got so incessant that I had begun smoking in the backyard instead, not wishing to part with any of my...
“Hannibal was the best. No comparison.” Zane shook his head at this. He was the kind of pale that if you looked long enough you might be able to make out the road map of the veins in his face. The dark circles under his eyes made him look as if he was permanently fresh from an altercation. His hair was neat, faded perfectly and slicked back. He...
The slight shock was what hurt the most. He felt just a small one, behind his left ear. If he took enough of the yellow pills, the sting might go away. But when he opened his eyes and looked around, he saw the same thing he'd looked at for the last two years. White steel bars and white walls, with no decoration save the black and white photo...
I remember some years ago, I was waking up on a futon in my grandmother’s house; drool clung to my mouth as allergies had forced my mouth open as I slept in my work clothes. I wasn’t planning on going to work though. I woke up and took a shower. My roommate at the time, who had recently been reunited with his mother and sister, complained that I...
The moment you feel the blow -- the weight of his right shoe arc between your thighs and buttocks and strike your pubic bone -- you are looking at a picture book of San Francisco. It leans against a high shelf in the garage. As you are sent inches above the concrete floor, you are thinking about the city’s hills and streets, as you have since you...
Today’s Sunday Reader comes from writer and musician Ryan Kent and is one of the many poems found in his most recent anthology titled This is Why I am Insane. 98. THE MOST BEAUTIFUL GIRL IN THE WORLD she told people she was v e n u s collected rocks and other silly shit said this one was good fortune this one was for testicular...
5:51pm Visiting grandmother’s house was a weekly ritual in my family. Every Sunday we went to church, dinner, and then to grandma’s quaint little cottage just outside of town. Don’t get me wrong, I love my Grandma, but I dreaded these visits. Sitting on plastic covered furniture, being overwhelmed by the smell of mothballs, making small talk...
I had been living in Northern Virginia for a few months and met a friend of mine for drinks. We knew each other from Richmond, where I had spent the last half decade or so. We were drinking, smoking and talking about politics, ethics, whatever else, sitting on an empty patio on a slow weeknight. We wandered through topics from physics to...
