From Which Little is Received

A couple years ago, the waitress at my favorite bar only made about $20 one night. When I left, she rode her bike up to the underpass, where 7 or 8 homeless people sleep, and tucked a couple bucks into each of their belongings.

~Diana Huntress

Homeless Shelter

I was walking my dog after a night of drinking. I met a homeless man who I wanted to take care of. He wanted to take care of me, too. I spent the rest of the night taking hits off his crack pipe on my front porch. (Hollywood, California, October 2004)

~Anonymous

Wisdom in Youth

I stood in the living room with other mourners of the murdered 24-year-old. A young woman next to the casket said to another, “His hair looks good, doesn’t it? I told him I liked it. He said it was a good cut to die in.” He knew they would get him.

~TJ O’Connell

The Hurtle

The elevator door slides closed and she drops to her knees, her hands pawing at my crotch. Looking down at her as she takes me into her mouth… I can only think of the woman I love so far away, sleeping, and myself now hurtling to same barren, distant nowhere.

~Samuel Butcher

A Different Expertise

The other night I watched my only brother sit for hours, scraping pipes. His hands that once created art moved with a different expertise; pushing copper wire along the inside of a blown-glass piece for one more hit.

Don’t tell me that marijuana isn’t addictive.

~K.W.

When Flighty is Grounding

Seeing her in the Senate Building was like seeing a fish on a sidewalk. Jessica Simpson was playing lobbyist. Keenly aware of our teenagers’ memorized gaze, she walked by with her entourage and said, “Swish, swish, swish. It’s like that jeans commercial.” Bang! She walked right into a wall.

~Kelly Jean

Maybe the Ministers are Right

The storage room door in my step-brother’s basement where I found a box of old porn magazines he had brought home from the Air Force. Almost 20 years later, sex with my Christian wife is sometimes … unsatisfying.

~Anonymous

Life is a Highway

When I drive down the freeway, I can’t help but wonder what it would be like to ram into the concrete median. Sometimes the pull becomes so strong I accidentally switch lanes.

~Alexis Andrews

Transposed

Typing and then e-mailing the conference call instructions to our board of directors, I inadvertently transposed two of the phone number digits. That afternoon, a couple dozen of Chicago’s most prominent civic leaders, at my unwitting direction, placed calls to a live sex hotline!

~Michael R