Shaping pliable hearts

Into desired form

Using hands and tools

It’s a versatile art

Suitable for various skill levels

From crooks to saints

Beginners to professionals

Can be used to create

Both functional muscles

And fine art pieces...

Scrib’s phone rang and cut through our conversation about what escapades he had gotten himself into over the weekend. He looked down at his phone, then at me. “Jim,” he said, almost sarcastically. I smirked and nodded, urging him to answer without saying anything. Jim was Scrib’s old bandmate. They loved each other, but the dynamic had always been cockeyed—Scrib never felt accepted by Jim and it w...

My vision was blurry from crying so hard. I had been standing in line for what seemed like days when it was my turn to say goodbye to Tasha. I crept up to the edge of the coffin she laid in—face made up in a way she would hate, a scarf tied around her neck to conceal the marks the rope had left. I felt another gush of grief rush through me and bent down to pretend to tie my shoelaces in a quick at...

The multiple eyes glared at him and he could see his own confused, terrified reflection staring back at himself through their icy blackness.

I must be dreaming, Nick thought.

“Wake up!!!!” He screamed, hitting himself repeatedly in the face. He didn’t wake up and he feared this was real—he was standing in his own fucked up horror novel. A world where spiders roamed as giants, aggressive and spit...

What did you do?

When the camel’s back broke

What did you do?

When they didn’t get the joke

What did you do?

When the surgical knife dulled;

Autopsies performed

on our time together

were now messy.

Contaminated....

It was a puking rally. The norovirus had broken into our home, held us all at gunpoint and ravished our virgin bodies. It had left its DNA on everything, making sure we would never forget. I had to kill it, and bleach was the only thing that would. Give me a gallon, maybe two....

Dana clacked at the keyboard, paused, and started clacking away again. She was growing frustrated and kept losing her train of thought, even though she wrote a version of these same documentation notes every day. The rage from the news she had received kept hijacking her brain, pulsating, mutating into a tumor....

“Why are we so quick to blame? What’s the attraction in that?” Cami thought. She stood at the treeline at the edge of the cemetery, out of sight. Her gaze skimmed over the dozens of people dressed in black, a sorrowful mass, and landed on the picture of Tony smiling. Tears started to fall from her eyes without blinking....

If desires are a flame

then I’m a wild fire

spitting sparks in your mouth

hindering your breathing

clouding your eyesight and judgment

with black smoke

you can’t even see me

raging through your house

burning it to the fucking ground...

I sprung up in bed like an erection. I hadn’t been dreaming, the buzzing noise that had woken me was still present—getting louder even....