expats behaving badly

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i’m addicted to short stories. i am. here are a couple CanLit stories that served as inspiration as i wrote and edited my short story collection, How to Pick Up a Maid in Statue Square. “Knife Party” and “Pompeii Book of the Dead,” by Mark A. Jarman, from Knife Party at the Hotel Europa a … Read more

eyeliner, black

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i need eyeliner, black. like any teenage girl with an ounce of self-respect, i steal it from the drugstore. under the watchful eye of the pharmacist, Mr. Greenwood, i edge past the magazine rack, read the labels of shampoos before arriving at the heaven that is drugstore makeup. apply lipstick, red, redder, reddest. pretend I’m … Read more

a response to John Ashbery’s Abstentions

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not the shy tourist, hopping up the salty steps of Rome. the shy man, sitting on the steps by the Piazza di Spagna, waiting for your Lothario. transparent feelings stream, stream, stream past: curiosity, desire, a wish to know it all. but all of it as it is not. not tall enough, not strong enough, … Read more