Adam Berlin’s collection of stories, All Around They’re Taking Down the Lights, opens with an anonymous man standing in the front of the mirror and practicing poses.

Richard Gere doing low-key

The “death of the mother” is trying to do two things: the first is a nod to family abolition and the death of the mother within a capitalistic context. And the second is explicitly thinking through “mothers” dying during childbirth or dying because they are unable to receive care for abortion.

To hold your love aloft. What a victory.

“Can beauty save us?”
“It can,” as I kiss her open mouth.

     That’s all I know, less than nothing.

What I remember of my cousin killing his sister is the sound. The stabbing that sounded like knocking, the knife being driven so hard into Agnes’ stomach it cleared the other side, striking the tub’s

I was on my way to guitar lessons, then Pure Math tutoring.

I didn’t say anything about your job or your Mark Twain or anything. There’s nothing wrong with working in a factory, there’s nothing wrong with bowling, there’s nothing wrong with having a Star Wars room…

You can see the universe in anyone's eyes

When you get out of Bellvue, they just discharge you and won’t even tell you where you are,

I pushed open the door and he was the only guy inside, about to unzip at the far urinal.

Before you can go to introduce yourself, she reaches in her mouth and pulls out his tongue.

“Once in a while, somebody is interested in what I might have to say. This somebody says, ‘I want to hear you out. I want to hear you out until there’s nothing left. I want you to tell me everything

I was pleased beyond all measure at finally reading what I had been avoiding reading.

But the merch guy was always your ticket in.

He never returns. That summer, it is just Olive and Rhea.

i am the machine that desires
and only in such desire
can i exist

It’s not necessarily loneliness that I feel but rather a burgeoning propensity toward violence.

Time makes pills of us all

“Aren’t hot dogs a little, you know, phallacious?” Sam asked, the words rolling out of his mouth like marbles.

“I’m a Halloweenie.”

“I hate you,” he said under his breath, but just loud enough that he hoped she would hear him.

Left to its own devices, the body is remarkably adept at disappearing. Left to others’ devices, its
veins are flushed and filled, lips are sewn shut, eyelids are propped.

trying to recall

the newness of our sexual joy

I had come out just a year or two prior, and anal sex was new. Nobody taught me anything.

Oh. No. I prefer fat men and fingernail clippers.

i grew tired of bukowski's penis / even deer looked plastic 

Us—playing God, getting got.