At puberty I changed my allegiance

from Hulk Hogan to Ric Flair,

that kiss-stealing, jet-flying

limousine-riding son-of-a-gun.

I stood on the edge of my bed—ready to leap,

sign language I love you inches from the ceiling

declaring that my descent was more than simply

mimicking my favorite wrestler’s finishing move.

More than a haphazard crashing down onto my

younger brother.

It took me beating my dad at ping-pong to realize that Demolition were just a couple of middle-aged fat guys in S&M gear.

20. ‘The Natural’ Butch Reed

We have come to watch the Royal Rumble, the ultimate battle royal, and you are a natural warrior. We have come to see twenty men take a beating and your body is chiseled from dark marble, your fists swinging like wrecking balls.

I’m only going to let you down.

He said this before he even had a second drink. I was walking toward the jukebox, and I didn’t even realize he was talking to me. But when I turned back toward the sound of his voice – deep, with a Texan edge – he was looking right at me.

After 12 hours of fast food and freeways, I reached the outskirts of Columbia, South Carolina. I pulled over to the side of the road and checked my map. This couldn't be right. No way a professional lady wrestler's school would be stuck in a little suburban neighborhood like this. But there it was, amidst the single-story ranchers, the block-long Moolah Drive.

A rainbow of rubberbands

twisted into your beard,

you housebroke

George “The Animal” Steele,

Vernon “Ernie” Cervid turned five years old.

By the Chinese zodiac, the Year of the Ox. Ronald Reagan was sworn in for his second term as president.

Please proceed, Governor.

--Barack Obama

Gentlemen, come on and spread the wealth.

Pass those bills and then we’ll pass around

our binders full of women on the shelf.

muscles cut from

Michelangelo’s David

and Plato’s retreat

in a symposium

of Greek boys

and Oxford dons

This essay has a lot going

for it: clear and cogent details,

story arc convinces, prevails

over lost fragments, arguing

well enough.

loveth thy neighbor

but not as much as yourself!

christ was no commie

It was a scandal and he was guilty, and it would follow the Washington script—the leak, the investigation, the camera flashes.

“Deny everything,” Senator Rockwell’s advisors told him when the first word came in.

I think it's cute when people make a special move to inform themselves about politics. When being informed about the state of the country and the world requires an investment of their time.

She liked drinking in parking lots, that was my favorite thing about her. We’d go to the liquor store and buy a case of beer, or a fifth of whiskey, or a bottle of wine, or a box of wine, or sometimes even champagne, or other times a random assortment of those small, single-serving, airport-sized bottles of whatever they kept at the counter.

Marcy is fat and ugly but she gives good head so she rarely sleeps alone which is not to say she’s not lonely. Marcy is not, in fact, ugly, but she might as well be.