“The thing is,” Jacob said, “I just don’t want to be here.” “Well, it’s not really a choice, is it?” “Everything’s a choice.” There was honking, and the siblings looked up to see a dozen geese coming in for a landing, wings scooped back, pressing the air behind them, webbed feet stretched wide and peddling […]

I wake up suspecting my horse is dead. I stand at my kitchen window and drink a glass of water looking out over the front yard.  Everything is bland in weak early morning light. Patches of snow still dominate. It’s April. It’s a consistent miserable. I know I need to put my boots on and […]

By the time I was fifteen, I was a regular in a bar. Which, back then, wasn’t all that unusual. It was the late-60s, we lived in Queens, and the bartender was a barmaid, a novelty at the time. Gracie. Black spit-curls, white boots, black miniskirt, white scoop-neck blouse. She called me Hon. She called […]

When I was ten, I was walking in the woods and came upon a spiderweb the size of a door and at the center of the tangling sheet of spirals, this funneled orbs of silk, was a spider, a Goliath birdeater-slash-huntsman hybrid with its thick tarantula spiked legs.  I reached out for it, this strange […]

Is nothing more than a warning Age 6 face smothered into the neighbor’s cat He shrieks and claws until I shriek higher Thin line of sticky red Dripping From my elbow, first scar Reminding me: Be careful, gentle, soft When blood Is nothing more than a tangible form of grief Age 16 the boy standing […]

In the darkness of our bedroom, he rolls to face me his hand coming to my hip bone and asks What’s one of your favorite words? Epitome. You? Forlorn.  The way the first “o” feels against your lips. What’s your favorite punctuation?  I consider the warmth of his fingers, the coolness of the wedding band […]

~for Diane Pridgeon   In Traverse City they have gutted the asylum. There are traces everywhere. In its repurposed rooms and new restaurants and artisanal shops. Hand in hand, my girlfriend and I eat gelato and step across the grounds. We know the patients here were treated with marigolds, their scent having long ago driven […]

I found it in the glove compartment nestled in its own yearning, something worse than lust, something I, myself, might have written. That I am writing to you now: I was always afraid of you. Your angry grieving. Your stomping of the house. And night-moaning. And frightening the dog. I was always afraid of ruin. […]

It’s not ok to ask my dad questions One of his teeth fell out and I try to see what’s behind it He opens his mouth to swear and a shot of whiskey falls out and spills onto my knee but I’m driving and it keeps me alert He replaces his tooth with a cigarette […]

My father loses touch with the world we can see after he cleans out the last drawer. After worker comps comes in and the last bill goes out paid. After he has written down every login and the first four characters of passwords. After the trees are pruned, the rosemary and cilantro clipped back. The […]

I can feel his close wet breath on my neck as warm clings to his saliva and seeps into my pores causing my blood to sway just a bit more we move silent as all else becomes loud with rhythm and voice as they creep around the room demanding / failing for attention hardwood eyes, […]

You are a campfire and the bear in the woods we were warned about. That VHS tape with all the white lines. You are the overplayed movie about the campers who befriend a wild bear by sheer magic and only one of them gets eaten. You are the berries in the bear’s stomach the eaten […]

To be eldest is to be the sentence before the trial. Even the exodus left me to wreck and conquer. All for a heritage of lack. I’ve ruined, drunk, and promised. Botched my anthems. I was not born here, I could never. I’ve had my own zip code for years now. I am tired. Mine […]

SYNOPSIS JANICE meets KEUM LEE in a zoom meeting, after discovering through DNA and Ancestor.com that they are half-sisters, and that her father had a Korean family when he was in the Korean War in the 50’s.    They compare stories and find that they had very different fathers, though he was the same man.   Can […]

Cast of Characters KAY       Mattress Magic Empire receptionist, can be played by any actor LEE       Mattress Magic Empire customer, can be played by any actor   Scene LEE’s disheveled bedroom and KAY’s office.   Time The present or close to it.   Notes This play is written to be presentable on livestream or in person. […]

When I first started working as a ghostwriter, people (and by people I mean only writers) often asked me what it was like or how it was different from writing fiction for… And they often would struggle to finish that sentence. “Myself?” I asked. I generally told them I didn’t know the answer to that […]