Teachers who read my stories say that we're past existentialism. We're post-modernists now. that's us. Literature is now about meaning. if we can create the ideal juxtaposition of light and dark then we've got it. I wonder if my stories do have any meaning. if my teachers simply didn't get it, and because of this have determined that what I've written asserts the general message that everything is meaningless. Probably not. They're trained professionals in art. I curl the edges of my notebook...

This is my arm and I'll let you study the pattern of freckles and even trace the jagged gray scar where my cat scratched me when I took away the used tampon she knocked out of the trash and was playing with (i think she thought it was a mouse) She didn't cut deep but I kept scratching and picking at it because i'm a nervous girl but i'm waiting to not be i'm waiting to be composed and graceful but until then you can put your ear right against my chest and hear my heart beat...this is me can y...

If you open a newspaper there are people to hate selected for you. Hell, if you open your eyes you can select your own. It’s harder to realize that people are people, and when you really open your eyes, it just doesn’t seem right to hate anyone. Consider the heartbeat of one man, and all of the limbs attached to him that always seem to get in the way. Consider the systolic and diastolic readings a measurement of time, compressed by reality. -- Clayton was a drunk who spent most of his time c...

You can feel sorry for both Clayton and Angela. Both happen to be victims of a string of unfortunate events that until now have not intertwined. This can be said for anyone. Above all, this is the story of past ghosts and present actions, as all stories are. -- He was a drunk who spent most of his time cursing women. He spoke colorfully about many ladies of the night as well as a few women he supposedly didn’t have to pay. They were all whores in his eyes, but when he woke up hung over and t...

Her left foot was asleep, so she lifted it. Her ankle was pinkish-red and had tiny bumpy indentations from the mottled carpet of Mark’s basement. He was a senior in high school, and she was a sophomore. She watched attentively as he took a small plastic Ziploc bag (reminding her of the bags containing the tiny rubber bands when she had braces) from the inside zip pocket of his army green utility jacket. He placed the bag on the coffee table. His confident movements suggested a sense of routin...

The floors looked as if they had been scrapped together by a third-grader for a modge-podge art project gone wrong, they were glossy in some patches and sanded and unfinished in others. He walked across the room, creaking along the way, wanting to be noiseless. He sat down on the floor, leaning against a wall of cubby-like shelves. This is where she had told him to meet her, and it had sounded important. He looked up at the impossibly large arch window in the back of the room. It was casting ...

INTRODUCTION The beginning of any story is important. Most readers decide within the first three sentences whether they are going to continue reading. Please stay with me. I’m overwhelmingly narcissistic, so I’ve written my memoir thousands of times before, none of which have been required up until now. I haven’t attempted a memoir in several years, however, so hopefully this is going to be a good time to come back to it. None of my memoirs are what I really wanted them to be, in fact, all ar...

INTRODUCTION The beginning of any story is chiefly important. Most readers decide within the first three sentences whether they are going to continue reading. Please stay with me. 
 I’m overwhelmingly narcissistic, so I’ve written my memoir thousands of times before, none of which have been required up until now. I haven’t attempted a memoir in several years, however, so hopefully this is going to be a good time to come back to it. None of my memoirs are what I really wanted them to be, in fa...

I motion for you to come over, and you seem hesitant. I don’t blame you; I wouldn’t want to talk to me either. But the thing is, you have to engage the real world sometimes, champ. It’s not going to kill you. We’re at the neighborhood dinner party; we’re expected to converse. Who am I kidding? I have to talk to someone soon or my wife will shoot darts out of her eye. The one in the back of her head. All women have ‘em. Scary shit. Anyway, I don’t want to sleep on the couch for the next week. ...

Under Covers Get out of my bed Condom balloons are a mysterious thing. When they’re blown up, they’re distorted, funny and colorful. Because they are an exceptionally lightweight balloon variety, they are ideal for playing “the floor is lava, keep it off the ground.” Yes, condom balloons may seem like all fun and games, but let my story be a cautionary tale to the contrary. Condom balloons pop. Spontaneously. I might have been in, say, Religious Studies class when mine popped. There’s really ...