'isn't it funny how often the simplest questions are the most impossible to answer?' she stared at him, her chin resting in her hands, with the usual excess of intensity that most people found strange. the question was rhetorical in that there was no trace of humor in her voice. he shrugged, more invested in his soup than in the conversation. 'what ( Read more... )

past three in the back hall, with the sound of laughter drowning out the volley of character assassinations disguised as bad jokes, and the carpet mildewed with last week's soda spilled by kids too scared to stop and think. they shout each sentence that comes to mind before the chance to weigh or reconsider, because wait one second and you're miles ( Read more... )

the yellow light from the streetlamps spilling over the cobblestoned road and dying partway up the tiled walls gave the night a cheap ambiance that coughed romance onto the faces of those trying to avoid it. there was a summer wind which carried only dust and warm air, but many shivered, an excuse to hug themselves against the possibility of words ( Read more... )

i can't sleep, on the grander scale of things.

i had an out of body experience yesterday, i think, while eating a bowl of cereal. the cereal had no particular relevance as far as i could discern, but was just present due to simple probability, being as it is my most common activity. i didn't go far out of my body either, just a few inches up and to the left, enough to watch me gently ( Read more... )

the cool the grass the wet the cool wet grass always wet dew on the tops of your toenails and cold ache in the arch of your foot bare feet but not even dew, just rain. what summer? i wander. at the time i was searching. i wonder. but now as i remember, (while tossing about rosemary and singing about rue? what kid in their right mind. must be the ( Read more... )

i had a conversation at some point last night that included some bits about who i used to be and why i was so glad that i wasn't that person anymore, and then i proceeded to revert almost exactly back into those same old ways. it's always my fault and it always comes down to the same old thing: i just can't live up to my own ideal of passive ( Read more... )

il will give myself three minutes to scream and stress and whine about this headache that presses and presses and ends each thought i start in phlegmatic silence with half the words yet buried in my tongue. i do not dote on deadlines, and ambition is as much a heroic and unattainable quality for me as is arrant empathy. my wrists throb to the beat ( Read more... )

there is a roach on the floor. as good a way to start as any. as good, as well, as any asylum for that poor insect (why pity, you fool?) with no concept of its peril, born into a world ruled by creatures that find it repulsive, and fit to be squished. but roach, just think (a philospher bug), i am as vulgar as you, being that hopeless type, the ( Read more... )

the field hadn't changed. he stepped off the sidewalk and wandered indirectly but inevitably over to the flagpole planted on the little hill in the corner nearest the trees. he'd sat there hundreds of times, having long conversations with people he'd later come to despise, or stammering awkwardly in attempts to avoid the regret of unspoken truths ( Read more... )