Toward the end, when heart disease had already taken my father, and my mother was alone—which she found intolerable—her doctors felt she had dementia. But I knew that was not the case. She had always
I used to write in circles. Starting in the center.
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Apart from all these violent events, Raziel, De Kuff, and the other cult members have been moving between Jerusalem, Safed (site of the ancient
He was in love with his friend Faye, had known her since elementary school.
If you get this far, that means that things are all, more or less, going according to plan.
The Christian Movie Theatre is mainly for fans of poorly translated morality tales, the violent ends of saints and so forth.
Despite your better judgement, you click on his profile and then on the most recent post: a picture of him smiling on a white slope with his arm wrapped around a remarkably average, yet still somehow traditionally hot (not pretty, just hot) snow bunny.
The next day, I woke first and made French toast. I had a teenaged hangover, buzzing and giddy.
The story of religious mania and the story of political violence look very likely to converge on each other. Having consciously elected the first, Lucas keeps being drawn, sometimes unwillingly, sometimes unwittingly, toward the other. Both feature his new inamorata, Sonia Barnes.
There was something that she wished to start, and when she started it, she figured, her life would take on new meaning. But in this moment in time, she ate breakfast bars all hours of the day and worried about money.
I count the number of murderers in the class.
swang
at night i sleep next to you, your skin balmy course. like grinded down sweetgum made smooth in the sweat of the mississippi delta summer. you tear and bend at my will. your spine disjoints
There is a universe of existence we have no words for, and maybe that is why we sequester ourselves in naturally quarantined cities: fear of the unknown and unintelligible.
Nick your shin shaving, stare idly at the blood coursing down your foot and down the drain, and maybe this is how you do it, empty out all your insides until your shapeless skin is all that’s left.
I wanted to be “that girl,” but my new high-waisted pants from the Marais were already unbuttoned once.
EMOTION CASINO
welcome to your life
your face changes as you watch
outside the frame
among the distractions
you are right now
a body prone to emotion
Google Maps
attraction
you never
During our first few years together, Leopard went through the washing machine after I peed on him, many times.
If Lucas is the most obvious Bob Stone avatar in Damascus Gate, Adam De Kuff might also be a contender, sharing with his author an improperly managed mental illness (it’s made very plain that De Kuff has stopped taking his prescribed bipolar meds a long while back)
Brian was psyched too. Not about her requests—Tom Waits was more his groove—but about where things seemed to be headed.
I render a coin
for something
I forgot
the sky
scratching itself
into decency
when I
wake up
always rattling
around
in my skin
a new aesthetic
I
“How do I know if it’s right?” I wrote. “How did you know?” “I just knew,” she texted back.
I ain’t supposed to know about these woods. But I did know the coyotes.
