The cool marine layer had crept over the city through the night, seeping its way into cracked windows, tugging at the edges of blankets. Highway headlights dimmed a little, and the comfort of shorts and shirts soon turned into jeans and jackets, maybe a scarf. Scarves, Henry thought, what a joke. Henry made his way through the lobby towards the elevator doors, suitcase in one hand, rolled blueprints in the other. His visits to Los Angeles felt tropical; a nice getaway from the sleek and sting of a New York winter. He sought them. He sought any opportunity to venture west.
The elevator doors slid open. He began to read through the small calendar he kept in his pocket as he made his way up to the 28th floor.…
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A man sits across from me. He speaks of taming wild thirsts; my fierce, unholy hungers. Of bread and blood. And meat and seed.
He crusades to turn my eyes inward and soul outward. He wants to see the prospect of nature everted and poke at the diseased spots of its pink, fleshy core.
I listen to the living word carried on his musky breath – like the dusty old books on his shelves. It smells like nothing has lived or stirred there in a long time. He spits when he pontificates.
A framed certificate confirms an ordination for God, but I keep expecting a demonic, bifurcated tongue to emerge. Oh God, don’t think of tongues.
He leans forward and asks if I’ve known the smell of sulfur.…
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I grew up in a shoddy trailer park just east of Roanoke, Virginia. My hometown has always been a hotbed for deviant behavior, an incubator for miscreants. I suppose this made it easier for me to reconcile with the idea of dropping hard earned cash in foreign whore houses. Jamilla was mortified by my tales of erstwhile debauchery.
“Oh my God,” she shrieked in the most judgmental tone she could muster. “How could you?!”
“How could I what?”
“Have you ever seen that documentary called Trap Door?”
“Yeah, I think so. Is that the one about the Mongolian Empire?”
“Worse! It’s about human trafficking and illegal adoption rackets. The girls that work in those cat houses overseas are sold into that life. Spending money in those places makes you complicit in horrific crimes against defenseless women.”…
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I reached out across the sheets and put my hand over the small of her back just above the skin, her camisole cinched, my mind in full focus as I encountered her aura. I breathed deeply thinking maybe this is the road back. It’d been awhile. I tried to think how long it’s been as I glided my hand above her butt feeling static generate from her panties, holding my hand just above contact like maybe the magic of silk and electro-magnetism would change things.
In the beginning of our relationship she would turn to me late at night and ask questions like “Do you think I have nice hands?” And words would slide out of my mouth, “slender, soft.” She would listen and take it in and I could feel her smiling in the dark and we would make love.…
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Welcome to Custom Jesus! Where you get to hang out (virtually!) with the Jesus of your choice and predilection! Here are some recommendations to which you should not at all feel limited to, but feel free to choose them if you so please and desire!
Good Old American Jesus: This popular Redeemer emphasizes the importance of the traditional family, patriotism, freedom, capitalism, and the basic fundamental values of our Founding Fathers. For an additional $10, he will sing the lyrics of “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” to the tune of an ancient Galilean bar song!
Jock Jesus: Say goodbye to the “meek and mild” Savior of Sunday School days gone by, this Jesus is not afraid to flex his washboard abs. Turn the other cheek? I don’t think so!…
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I. Seven Words
He’s always been a deep sleeper. She visits his face. Two flies surround the slight entrance of his mouth. She swats at their intrusion, only to find the corner of a piece of paper clamped between his lips. She tugs the paper delicately between thumb and index causing an opening of the mouth. The smell of shredded carcass burns her eyes to a water. A black beetle gnaws at the edge of his tongue. She extracts the rest of the paper from what was once a pink fleshed organ. She unfolds the damp material. Only seven words, Guilt is a hard thing to swallow.
II. A Shower after Dinner
She flushes the goldfish down the toilet. This is how she copes with her anger.…
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I wrapped the watch in the old cigar box just as he had when he gave it to me for my twelfth birthday. He said his dad had given it to him when he turned twelve and that he wanted me to have it now that I was old enough to take care of it. The box still reeked of the cigars he used to smoke when he drank. He gave the watch to me a couple of days before he locked me and my mom and my little sister out of the house in one of his fits. That’s what mom used to call them, fits. We had to walk to Grandma’s in the dark that night and sleep on the green shag carpet of her living room that smelled like cat pee that’d been there for twenty years.…
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