History of Violence, Volume A Sort of kind of after Ted Berrigan’s “The Sonnets: L” Keyed up, you walk with the metalSticking out from your fob. Jezail——various——musket——various. Gunfire or fireworks: a fun game to play every Fourth of July; Everyone is a detective these days. Anything could happen. A bullethole in your gastank. Very funny, or is this tragedy at its…

Fraternal 1 —Is that all you’re going to say ? Ok ? I spose I didn’t react enough on the call to suit him. —Dad’s dead. Ok.—He had a heart attack.Ok.—They tried two hours at the hospital but it was too late.Ok.—They’ll be working out the funeral details there.Ok. Really, what did he want ?

When you’re ready for a blowjob let me know, I say, parting ways at the late night subway station——you drunkenly down the stairs to the humid Hells of South Ferry and your ever immortal beloved to Bowling Green and its fake massacre. It’s been a year since I hung that perfect monster down my patron saint's throat——no gag reflex from years of alcohol’s burn——in the movie theater at Seaport then later that night at the spy lounge on the roof after a bottle or two of…

I knocked on the door, which was ajar, and waited. This was never going to be an impulsive act. Shuffling steps preceded its opening moments later. They belonged to an old man, the once handsome face lined, craggy. He was thin, apart from a paunch that drooped over the belt of his expensive trousers. “Dr. Nicholls?” “Yes?” “I’m Grace. Grace McKay.”

Ode to Purity Culture Bless the kids who couldn’t sleep over at their unmarried aunt’s house because she was living in sin. Bless the aunt and uncle. Bless the fancy promise rings and the parents who gave them and the fingers that wore them. Bless the ones who kissed dating goodbye and the ones who kissed dates anyway. Bless the signatures that pledged to save sex for marriage. Bless the backseats of church vans. Bless the butts that mooned from the vans’ rear windows and from the balcony of the boys’ summer camp cabin.

Making the Fall over You Did you lose consciousness?       i don’t remember all that we said when we first met,       but i know the evening at that bar was full of       long island ice teas till they closed.       i remember you told me it was funny the way       my tongue hits the back of my teeth       before gagging on what i say. Have you vomited?       i try to take my antidepressants every day, but lately       i have been wondering if they have fixed anything in my brain,       so i just cheek them every morning, hoping whatever dissolves…

back, and my apology wins you back, wins you over, wins the NOBEL PRIZE IN PEACE, the PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION, the TONY AWARD FOR BEST DIRECTION, the PRIMETIME EMMY AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING LEAD AC…

how does that make you feel? like i cherry picked our singed mail box for a dead invitation to my own 4th birthday party. the cashmere unicorns and nylon stuffed tigers that ignited toddler hearts left grill marks and the crystalline frosted cookie cake burned in the freezer.like i sold my kidney on facebook for ten dollar billsthat exchanged green presidents for silhouettes of contorted women. i bundled itwith a lottery scratcher and surgical tools and now the owner has stones. like i spotted my daughter exploring our pharmaceuticals and she sobbed…

Someone in the audience screamed. Marvin Monzo looked up from the screen to see who it was. With half the people in the room pale, hands clapped over mouths, it could have been anyone. It wasn’t his fault——or the Mechanism’s——if they didn’t like the answers to their questions. So what if farm animals thought we ought to eat more of them? They didn’t hold our carnivorous urges against us at all——not even factory farming. Pigs and cattle admired the scale and efficiency; even up to their last bloody seconds in the abattoir, they were impressed with our ruthless ambition.

Adieu I will not be cleaning your poolwhile you’re away for forty dayslaughing, strolling along the Seine.What a puzzle that you can flyto Paris but not pay for help. A people pleaser and doormatno more, I am changing my ways.Yet, you’ll ask again. And again.But no, old friend, I won’t comply,especially not when you yell. Enjoy the mirrors at Versailles.I give you to God, mademoiselle. Shalimar Affectations can be dangerous.      ——Gertrude Stein It was Aunt Helmi’s signature scent: Heady florals flow into…

He doesn't tell me disappears into the bathroomstays ten minutesno toilet sound flushingcomes out with a small brownpaper bag—rolled tight at the top opens the front door hands it to a womanI've never seen before magma spewsup my body    marrow-hotbone-lit     catapultsme out of the houseto spill, wail, ranttrust splattered I, who can freightno more childrenmy then-husband donatesto another womanwho will raise his childthe child I hunger to bear morning shower 1987 you were the way back…

Q: What about the anger that rises so easily inside you? A: I’m going to therapy again. But it takes time to establish a relationship. To build a trust. To talk about the parts of me I don’t want to talk about. The angry parts. So I’m writing it down. Not all of it. Some of it. A part of it. How trustworthy is the narrator? I’ve been angry a really long time. As if I was born with a deep-rooted anger. Or maybe a revenge? Perhaps a collective trauma? When we talk about queer people, we so often hear stories of resilience, strength, survival.

The 1980 film kicked off a blood-splattered media franchise with nearly a dozen sequels. Mr. Miller worked on daytime television instead.

Posts about Best of the Net Nominee written by Charles

This villainy has been generously sponsored by a gift from Ben Kline. Learn more about sponsoring our dastardly deeds. In 2002, a year after 9/11, a forgotten performance artist named Gideon supports himself with sex work while he writes a final AIDS-themed piece he knows no one else wants to see. And Leon, a fading closeted Hollywood filmmaker, tries to revive his career with a glorified car commercial, which project fills him with self-hatred. At Leon’s office, bright young creatives pored through magazines, ripping images to paste up on what they all called a “mood board”: images to inspire, images to make something grander than a car commercial.

Hooking Up You answer the door half-naked,clearly expecting someone younger, thinner and porn star perfect.But it’s late, you need head, and your “roommate” is away. The shrine to your boyfriend, this roommate, on the mantlepiecegives it all away. You come back from brushing your teeth,unbuttoning your jeans,see me at the altar figuring it out.We will do this on the couch…

Make Your Job More Joyful Is your workplacea festival of distractions?When others disrupt your work,make a mess, hold you back, you can create an environment where you can focus. Tidy up. The basic rule is don’t be sentimental.Gather your coworkers, make a pile, and discard, all in one go. Fast. Change your life: take over your workplace. You deserve it. Start Living Life Uninhibited Millions of women like you feel barely noticeable, invisible. Stress and lurking worriesneutralize your confidence. But you can celebrate the beauty of…

Omissions I—      ——trim, scissor, treasure————what is trite, what is darling, what is      mine——when I landedat Norman Manley I couldn’t complete      the customs form my address of stay a vague neighborhood——Hope      Gardens or Pastures——so I waited while the root bound and leaf      free branched through to claimbaggage and bredren. “Here for the fashion       show?” asked the borderwoman——“One of the models?” Half-tempted      to say yes, what then——instead I gave a neighbor’s name——the one      sent to fetch me, you en route from Glasgow——the one paged——speakers      blazed over the crowd…

Before our girlfriends dumped us, we swayed gentle-drunk on the eve of our tenth high-school reunion, dogging shots around the dusty pool table at the town’s better bar. As we dipped about to Dua L…

Before our girlfriends dumped us, we swayed gentle-drunk on the eve of our tenth high-school reunion, dogging shots around the dusty pool table at the town’s better bar. As we dipped about to Dua Lipa songs vibing from the jukebox, we blew our vape clouds into the swinging, green-frosted light, though the place was posted as smoke-free. Our girlfriends said, “We can’t believe you grew up in this town.” “Why?” we said. “You’re all so business-y now. Have they even heard of the NASDAQ around here?” “Maybe, maybe not, but big-city bitchyness they have heard of,” we said.

At Whittier Junior High, Ohio, I spent a summer afternoon throwing a baseball so beat up it was more thread than leather, bouncing it off the brick wall behind the gym. The building was empty except for a janitor who wandered out now and then to toss with me, both of us killing time. Between the slap of ball on brick, I heard something faint——a mariachi line, or close enough——drifting from the west. I pocketed the ruined ball and followed the sound down Pearl Street. The first thing I saw was a donkey cart: real donkey, fake cactus, and a brown-eyed singer with a smile that could stop traffic.

Rare Interview with the Tornado from The Wizard of Oz The critics didn’t like me——said my acting was sure, natural, but overalldisastrous. I carried a house on my backfor miles, for 233 takes. I was the one who got the girl to Ozin the first place! What did the Tin Man do? The lion? That rotten dog. They cut the scene where I kissed Dorothyon the forehead, very tender, very grandmotherly, saying goodbye, promising to put every piece of the farm back in order. Hollywood only wants a character…

This villainy has been generously sponsored by a gift from Thao Vu. Learn more about sponsoring our dastardly deeds. Pattern Recognition Thanks to keen recognition capabilities, autistic people are sometimes thought delusional. In the Greek myth, Apollo gave Cassandra the power of prophecy then added a punitive curse: no one would ever believe the warnings she blurted in hopes of protecting others. In some versions of the myth, the people blamed Cassandra for the tragedies from which she tried to keep them. Retelling the myth risks the delusional misnomer, but this is necessary.

Masterful that slow bleed Of one straw-colored tint into the nextAs if that shrewd metamorphosis In shades of blond were possible Masterful the smile and condescension of an arm Draped casually across the back of your chairA hand with nails that suddenly dig in hard & fast The hollow sensation you get when they let go. Would you like to kiss her?What would making love be like?What would her sudden death enable? Release from days of servile gratitude for being noticedThe end of all the conversations you crave and rage against…

Mom sent me a lump of coal for Christmas in a bright red box & a green bowradiating holiday cheer;carefully wrapped in tissue. I imagine her sitting at the kitchentable finishing off her third Manhattan,contemplating an unlit cigarette:      Pauline needs a new coat, Roxy loves     the beach but what about that Lexy,     he’s always such a disappointment. I wonder where she found it; Facebook Marketplace, the Etsy Shop for Recalcitrant Children. Maybe she asked a neighbor, to elicitsympathy for having such an ungrateful son. I can see her searching diligently to find one…

Grief Flower Lie flat in the dim, wait for sleep, feelgrief stem from your sternum, unfurl great dark petals like the biggest magnolia you’ve ever seen, in negative, but the size and heft of a banana flower, invert as if gravity were in reverse, or as if your back were pressed to soft ceiling, the pendulum bloom extending the color purple so deep it reads even in daylight as black. Think no fruit will ring this stalk? Perhaps the monster bud’s more like an artichoke: you know it’s done when…

i had teeth before they interrupted who clitmy mouth and cut it stitched it upshut it until i smiledit didn’t hurt dentata The toothed vagina is no sexist hallucination: every penis is made lessin every vagina... ——Camille Paglia Open our legs, we’ll cut youin ha/lf, knowing you can’t standit. the iron phal/lus that you think wil/l break our teeth only bree/ds collapse. rever/ses the birth proces/s/ what use immortal/ity if death’s the only sp/oil? we’ll sink our te/eth into psycho/lo/gies. to figure…

He says he has a brain tumor. Or maybe a seizure disorder. Could be the weed and the antidepressant and the ADHD meds are mixing together in a noxious cloud so that he suddenly out of nowhere out of the perfectly clear blue sky calls you a fucking cunt and splinters the kitchen cabinet with a single punch and says you embarrass him when you go to shows where his friends are performing and why are you so awkward anyway and how hard could your job be sitting at a computer ordering goddamn books for children you need a degree for THAT much less two you should only have a REAL job dealing with the prissy assholes who come like fucking wisemen seeking the Christ child of a flat white or a fucking cinnamon chai or praise Jesus a pumpkin spice.

Ode to the Passionate Shepherd Why must you stand in damned vector field            pockets inside out when you said you wouldbe more embalmed people thought you meant            involved talk about shifting differentiable manifolds wind hits little arrows little arrows      show which way breeze blows northeast nowsouthwest who cares you care but who else            who else your crook looks like some melted candy cane handmade straw hat called skep not cool not fashionable at all animal husbandry requires pastures where is your pasture Council Grove         Kansas great meet the Council Grove weirdo…

Wearing the white dress, with my hair curled and my makeup perfect, I glared at my fiancé. My two friends stood at my sides, tense and nervous. “I said, get over here. Right now.” Emphasizing the last words with a jabbing finger, I waited for him to comply. He didn’t move. A line between his eyebrows deepened and his mouth turned down. He met my eyes for the first time today, narrowing them at me. “Now!” I hissed. A tiny shake of his head. He was fighting me hard, twisting and slipping out of my grasp.

I Know a Liar When he shared his victory over alcoholfor instance, it was still on his breath. Hesaid in all sincerity, “I don’t date uglybitches” in the ugliest way imaginable,pointing at a picture of his would-be bride,“I don’t waste my time,” he continued, andthough I could feel my own wasting, my owndimming in the light of what new knowledgemight kindle, though I’d heard what men saywhen they mean to be silent, or should,I smiled politely, like taking a sip from…

More Vulva Than Obelisk At the cemetery, I take backwhat I said last time. Instead, make my bone-markera vulva. How we come in is howwe are held when we leave.Doesn’t have to be exact, butlet it give more vulva than obelisk.I’m sick of all these skyward dicks.At my spot, engrave Mother on a fold. It’s not enough for me and we know that, butthe starkness has humor, and anyway, life isn’t contained entirely in bone-markers we leave behind. Tell me about it…

I Dream of Dismembering his mind. Bloodiedup to my elbows, I forage for memories.Digging deeper, I pluck pieces that werealready broken. One of us pulls free.Splatters, a metaphorical road kill lost to the floor. I stomp in itto make sure it is dead, then returnto my visceral vivisection. Almost immediatelytwo of me are found and released.For a moment I plot an appropriate demise.Instead I choose to breatheout, exhorting their escape. I smileand they wave, then waiver as the night disappears.