What I Saw The Day I Thought You'd Leave Me

(Conduit #18, Spring 2007)

As he strolls away from the bench he's been sunning himself on, the older man's bull-walrus chest parts the air like the prow of a big ship in a storm.

Did You Ever Watch Me Sleep

(Mad Hatters Review, Issue #5, 2006)

I screamed two months of my life into porcelain rims and ruined paint. I went crazy. Every day I walked uptown. I went into this church on 68th and First and cried into wood not my religion, prayed in space I never grew up in, lit candles to statues I had always thought were cartoons.

And you? What did you do?

The Thrift Store Guy (excerpt)

(The American Magazine, January 2006)

With $37 borrowed from the Cellist and a trip to Macy's bargain basement I got through the first couple of weeks of keypunching with the Girls without anyone realizing that I only had two and a half outfits. I did this with Gertie's collection of big earrings. Everyone would stare at my ears and not notice the pants I had worn three days in a row.

How Insomnia Saved My Life Until the Night It Tried to Kill Me

(AWAKE!: Reader for the Sleepless, Soft Skull Press, 2007)

Before any of this ever happened, Sleep was a horrid sorrow - the day fading into some dusk, the trains going by and sounds of children being smacked giving way to sounds of adults being smacked. All I knew was there was heartbreak in that pink thing called the sky. Before I could think more about what made a soul hurt, someone would be shaking me awake and another day would begin, offering up its perils into my face and other punching spots on my body.