Eastern Pennsylvanians love their hoagies. I’d pulled into a gas station after driving six hours north. The place advertised 2 for 1 liters of cola and state minimum cigarette prices. A ‘70s style goose sweeping across a setting sun illuminated above their door. Mosquitoes flocked to its luminance. I parked the car in the rear … More Gas Money, Honey
I want your Kevlar skin— evolutionarily engineered to banish the blades, the bullets, the bad omens. I want your ‘fuck the world’ attitude you sport the known, flawed self—unhindered by inevitable judgement no blood loss no bullshit no brown nose no nothing but grit and gums and safety pins because they owe you, not the … More Envy
Most of us do not remember the first time we learned our shapes. Until you budded into my life, I thought that I knew all the circles, squares, and rectangles – the rigidly defined personalities, those with a set number of sides, those who are predictable, parallel, familiar. I look back on the cast of … More Planes of You
Henry hadn’t set an alarm for a reason. That waking up to a machine nonsense was only a necessary means to an end. A crutch to maintain his place in the realm of responsible adulthood. That morning, he wanted to see how far his body could go naturally catching him up on the sleep his … More Ringtone (Killing Trevor Pt. 3)
She opened the door to the gas station half expecting the counter to be unmanned. Phillip, the greasy-haired attendant who worked the night shift, had a habit of stepping out the back to smoke a hand-rolled cigarette, leaving the counter empty. He’d stand within earshot of the bells that hung from the front door and … More Thirst (Killing Trevor Pt. 2)
The rain pounded on the metal roof of the car. It smattered against the glass. Filtered by those creeping droplets on the windows, the streetlight shadows animated the surfaces of the couple’s still faces. Cynthia, her thinly plucked eyebrows raised, looked at his hands as they gripped the steering wheel. A nervous tick of his, … More Headache (Killing Trevor Pt. 1)
I look up from my watch and hock a wad of phlegm into the mulch trying to seem more ticked off than I am because we’d been standing in line for forty five endless minutes. I could have watched half a movie in this time. I keep thinking about and that thought makes me irritable. … More A Line at Twin Rivers
Rain would have been more fitting. Clouds. Torrential downpours. Some freak hurricane. Not this nurturing warmth that was carried in the breeze along with the songs of springtime robins. The boys were out with their father picking up new fishing poles and getting something for lunch. Patrick felt it best that Isabella, his wife, the … More Pink Bow Untied
All day it had been the same thing. Jimmy Larson with his alpha-male-entitlement-because-a-growth-spurt-hit-before-these-other-two-soon-to-be-ninth-graders-so-I’ll-be-a-raging-douche-all-day-long attitude. So what if he got a hand job at the Martin’s bonfire the weekend of the Fourth? Six months ago, none of them even knew what a hand job was. All damn day. Every other blast fired from his loose cannon … More 2-2 Count
Whenever I would get to see you, when it was our time, I felt I was stepping up to the challenge of an arcade pinball machine. Feeling below the cabinet for that hidden power switch, I’d seek you out. Reaching into my coat pocket for my busted burner phone and punching in the sequence of … More Top Score
