“Yoga Bitch” by Kathleen McElligott

I’ve maxed out my credit cards. I got fired. I only leave the house for organic food—and yoga . . .

“if you leave a twenty and a crackhead alone in your room, it’s your own damn fault!” by Eshu Bandele

I started by speed walking, then high-stepping, then flat-out mad dashing. I knew that my increasing anger was irrational.

Really, if you leave twenty bucks and a crackhead alone in your room, it’s your own damn fault! . . .

“Dropping Like Flies” by Brian Lance

Flies pepper the window of my Fort Benning barracks room. I stun them with pine-scented Glade. With each spray they drop—well, like flies . . .

“8 Up” by Mori Glaser

Inkspot Hurricane’s eyes light up when I walk in. We go way back—I used to play music to his poetry on the folk scene. He was a slight man with a big voice, called Inkspot after the singing group, good name for a poet. I don’t recall how Hurricane came about . . .

“Sugar” by Dahlia Ge’ez

Unconsciously, I drove toward the ever-expanding bakery with its extra-filled jelly donuts and rum–drenched chocolate cakes smothered in white, flaky coconut frosting . . .

“Killing Time” by Kirsten Rae Simonsen

We arrived around three a.m. and banged on the door, which swung open. The tiny white apartment was filled with pasty-faced, sweating people, hopping and hollering to a harrowing type of Dutch hardcore techno that thumped angrily through the speakers . . .

“Sugaring Off” by Margaret Barbour Gilbert

We went to dinner at the Russian Tea Room on West 57th Street. There was a gypsy beggar in the cold with a melancholy accordion player near the door. The music made me so sad I wanted to cry, but I went inside with Sir Rudolf . . .

“Dipshit” by Scott Scheible

“Hardest thing you’ll ever do in your life. Mental equivalent of hog-tying the meanest steer this side of Odessa . . .”