in dreams you return. beneath a tangerine sun on the longest car ride, we talk and we talk and i have since forgotten all but your laughter speeding through light.
Stealing Almonds
When I was nine, I became best friends with Chubby Morgan to humor my mother, who was on the verge of taking me to a psychiatrist because I spent most of my time alone or with imaginary playmates.
Voices
But when I took my first writing class, I was dismayed that the only voice I heard was mine telling me that my previous works had been merely imitative, and that I was really an imposter as a writer with nothing of my own to say.
St. Francis’s Prayer and the Serenity Prayer
God, grant me the serenity to accept, with upraised palms, smooth like two nickels, the word that sometimes, like a loosed neuron, frenetically flits across a yellow field,
A Funeral
Florida was everything that my parents had promised, and I was miserable. The hotel featured a sprawling labyrinth of hot tubs, waterslides and juice bars. The arcade had games I normally would have never been allowed to play, and women in red, blue and purple swimsuits of varying styles were everywhere. At first, the distractions were enough, but I soon became twitchy and weird like an animal with fleas. Everything sent me into a state of chaotic desire, the warmth of the swimming pool, the sound of the squeak of my back on the rickety waterslide, the coolness my hand felt on the side of a concrete.
An Invisible Thread
He would affix an alarm clock above his head so that if he drifted off to sleep while he was writing, the alarm clock would go off and fall on him. That way he could continue to write even when he was exhausted.