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This is not America! It is not the America I grew up in, it’s
a joke.

“Ki-Tae the famous pastor,” Jae says to her. “Can you believe life.”

A gift tells you who you are and what you’re not in the eyes of others.

His mind was a glass vase shat-
tered into pieces across the floor.

You and me is as good as anybody else, and maybe a damn sight better.

You don’t feel anything when they cut you, not at first, just the blood.

Despite seeing the other knockoffs, I hoped my dress would be perfect.

Here’s the part where you pledge devotion until death, I told myself.

This itchy voice, this desperate chant, that begs: okay. Okay.

Joanna Walsh

Joanna Walsh

How did I ever survive? Maybe I didn’t. Maybe I died back there.

“Go watch the showgirls, Roy,” said Chino. “It’s educational.”

I uttered words I will regret to my last breath, which is already near.

Judging beauty, which is keenest, Eye or heart or mind or penis?

Over salad, the Frenchman asked me about work and what I did.

“I know, I know, I shouldn’t have done it, but they had it coming.”

I have not won yet, but I behave, I feel and think like a rich man.

Why is a duel out of the question? Men are all cocks; they should fight.

I instantly realised what losing would mean. My whole life was at stake.

It’s not clear that Hemingway completely knew what he was doing.

Until now the man had not really lived, but simply existed, to be sure.

That autumn, my first in San Francisco, I ran short of money.

Time stops as the ball rolls tantalizingly around the rim.

He probably should have arrested or at least reported me to someone.

After days of torture in secret prisons, they were about to let him go.

So long as there was money, the girl felt established, and brutally proud.

His hands stiffened so that the fingers curled inward like gray claws.