Facing Charges
Ben Nickol
And yet, and yet, from the rear pew of my mind came a rude slurping as my straw probed the ice of a Pepsi.
And yet, and yet, from the rear pew of my mind came a rude slurping as my straw probed the ice of a Pepsi.
We get back together, because of course we do. He is better, now. Therapy helps both of us.
Dan texted his wife before going on the ventilator. She shares most things on Facebook, and she has disclosed this last message, too.
Tom Selleck, in his best reverse mortgage voice, volunteers to call your parents and break the news that their daughter almost died. Your mom is happy to hear from him since she always liked Magnum P.I.
She arrived at my apartment at 3 a.m. with a soft suitcase on her head, a handle positioned over one eye. I could see the netting in her matted blonde wig. Her broken eyeliner and stained lips
After we finish doing the dinner dishes together, Mario heads into the living room and picks up the remote control.
“Guess what?” he says, turning on the TV. “New Zealand is playing England in
I saw into the face tattooed on his thigh and thought, I am not afraid.
Going to work after you’ve been on an meth bender in a brothel is not a good idea,
Sangria at a soup shop. Pieces of peach and apple in the wine. The skin of the fruits unpeeled in my mouth. Sangria even though it was winter, early evening, cold and already dark out. Goblet-sized,
It’s a Tuesday at 3 pm, which means it’s time for my therapist to remind me that I am a victim of a violent crime.
The house on Olean street stands as it once did, a formerly bright white house, the sidings been torn off, revealing dark greenish-black shingles. This house, the black sheep of the neighborhood.
My father locked his children up in a house for years for fear that they would die of pesticides from plants. More than that, we were locked in our rooms with a gate.
There’s a story my father used to tell from his days as an ER resident. An old lady showed up for care, and when he asked her what had brought her in, she calmly raised a hand, showing him her palm. It was pierced straight through with a long darning needle.
Bet you’ve only made lahmajoon from scratch once. Bet you’ve made pierogi dough once. Bet your attempts at grandma’s pilaf recipe are crunchy and undercooked, noodles burnt, stuck to the bottom of the pot.
I approached looking at thirst traps like I did those Magic Eye 3D posters I’d stared at as a kid. If I stared long enough, I believed, I could see something real in those thirst traps.
One day, I end up on the side of the road next to a bobcat who is thrashing after being hit by a car.
Bread has its own history, its own holiness. Flour was pounded from prehistoric plants then roasted on the hot stones of Neanderthal fires. Ancient Egyptians milled grain between giant rocks, dark, mixed flour, imperfect loaves with heady scent.
I -- Book
In every house of our memories, there is a book. In the basement of mine, there is a paperback with pictures of the sea.
The underwater camera is smeared with the blurriness of
The first six months I took hormones I was frumpy and ridiculous looking. I didn’t know anything about makeup or styling
Because you are ten, pink skin streaked with freckles and sunscreen, sea salt on your lips as you run your tongue around your ice-cream, and a man with a grey wire moustache puts his hand on your leg and asks your mum when he can marry you, and the sand of his handprint sticks to your skin no matter how hard and raw you scrub it.
Tasmanian devils (yes they are real animals) give birth to about 40 babies at a time but they only have four teats and so what that means is that the first four babies that make it to those four teats are the only ones that survive and do you know what happens next?
Tim tells me that broke up is strong language to use. I wonder how he would describe our ending. Broke up implies an entity to be broken, but we never made it that far. I still don't know what we
Our return to campus one evening to discover spray-painted in black on the university’s entrance wall, “ICI ZOO ETRANGER” (HERE IS THE FOREIGN ZOO).
Conscious of your eyes on me, but unwilling to let you derail my mission, I whispered to myself, “You’ve ungently, Brutus…”
We go from ecstatic to great to good to therapy. I go to bed numb and wake up furious. I leave you for the couch every night. Is year seven always like this? When Marilyn Monroe makes a movie about
Is this new relationship self-sabotage in disguise, or is it the cure?
Garielle's longest, most peculiar, most particularized book. A sure-to-be collector's item. Not be be missed!