The solar system running sloppy
down the sides of your vest.

It all started with a wrong clap. I remember that because Dave was saying that when she was born, her dad got mad that she clapped on the 1 and the 3 and not the 2 and the 4. He was clapping weird.

what do i fucking care what gloria e. thinks of me?

do i not have the right to nitrous oxide 

I knew the talk about a baby was another red flag, but the more uncontrollable Amelie became, the deeper I got hooked. I couldn’t go back to what my life was before. I think it had been drowned the

I get insecure when you say things like

I was born when you were 15

The thing about Grandma is that she seems to show up unannounced and she doesn’t care about the substance of the prayers, just that they end in Amen.

 I know Max is probably hard by the time we get to the overlook at the dam. He puts the car in park and tells me he mixed a cd, just for me, because I’m so special.

- I can’t believe this is

As a young boy, I lived in the Bronx in the mid-1980s during a time when it was infamous for its squalor, a third-world dilapidation captured in movies like Martin Scorcese’s Taxi Driver. I remember

The sleet has stopped but the cold is something unthinkable. It lends a deathly permanence to the still, heavy darkness. I stand shivering on the sidewalk and look up at the Hollywood sign. I try to

The only noise I hear is the hum of electricity, subtle as the sound of the universe whispering.

Larry David sees me crying about AIDS

I am not sorry about most things I’ve done; I really do try my best to be good.

My opponent was curly-haired and perpetually smirking. Everything around him – his fancy collared shirt, shoes, wristbands, tennis bag – was emblazoned with an Adidas logo

I just thirst for barbed wire
 

shadows cast like heaven’s
hands down over her eyes.

The boys stood in the vacant lot outside the convenience store, which was closed today due to a special occasion. There was even a sign on the door. Armando was getting high again. Stew was quiet.

He’s still rambling about my womanhood, my untapped, ethereal potential, when I reach for a tissue and blow his hot load out of my nostril.

To repeat something can be a form of stuckness. But it can also be an ecstatic cry.

When I ran away at fourteen, I didn’t know
I was listening to an animal urge to find my own way, like all
teens

But her coup de grace was when she started bringing a white boyfriend to our parties. He was a real champion. His name was John.

I did become very close to many people in the McSweeney’s universe. A lot of those people were great, and a lot of them were just ambitious people with no integrity whatsoever.

Dolphins are too good for this world, I think, as I reluctantly, fearfully, kiss one on its domed rubbery mouth while someone snaps a picture.

One day her daughter says to her mom, in front of you, that she wants to go to art school, just like you. And it is the first time you realize, her mom does not want her daughter to be like you.

Motioning the stone girl over, she
deadpans, “It’s grenadine, not blood.”

He looks at me a little like how the alley cats look at the mice behind the house, but I don’t mind.

Walking through the dense forestry of unrefrigerated 24- and 30-packs, Pete was in search of something that would stand out from the rest.