Suicide, New Work City - Lou Chapman

"Absolutely," I say for no other reason than to shut him up. I'm tired. I'm tired of the dead. I'm tired of the living. I'm tired of this mean-looking motherfucker with the finger like a gun. I'm tired of the dead girl's mother, who won't talk to me about the man who killed her daughter. I'm tired of the sun and the heat and these streets."

- Hollow Point, Rob Reulaund

Work Ethic

"I read about Stephen King... who's just this machine. So I thought I would do that. And so I get up at the crack of 9 AM, and then I kind of wander into my office and I put out my paper and my pen. And then I discover that I am in the kitchen making brownies, and I don't know how I get there."
- Diana Abu-Jaber

The Blues

Susanna Shap

“The blues make a rough blanket, like the ones they give you in the orphanage. But they keep out the cold. I shoved a cassette into the tape player without looking, waiting for the dark streets to take hold of me and pull me in, waiting to get back to myself.”
- Strega, Andrew Vachss

Howl

Photographer Unknown

I Am Leaving Out Some Details

Wire in the Blood S03E04

Nothing

“Besides, nothing is falling apart,” I say, fully aware how risky it is to say things like that out loud. “That I know of.”
- Origin, Diana Abu-Jaber

Sinners

Photo by Katie Whitman

There is a distance the size of bravery
It forms like words in the mouth of a baby
Reaching out for the point where all things meet

On one end of it sits an information man
Who I imagine holds down his second job as church bartender
Behind locked doors leading to the bell tower we are not allowed to see—
Sinners

On the other end of this space, I am standing like shoe polish on an overstocked shelf
Hoping that one day someone will pick me to make things better
This is not a showdown or a shootout, we are not facing off
But I can feel the rumble between dusk and dawn
As if the chance to come clean with myself will be outlawed unless I relax

- Buddy Wakefield