Wasn’t this, after all, why she’d come out here in the first place? To find something special? 

This is not beautiful because this is not beautiful.

I meet a girl on OK Cupid and the first date goes well enough.

Late one night I found him, my long-lost uncle, Duane.

Eventually she won't think of me unless she hears mention of my name, or sees my friends, or a boxy japanese sedan from the 80s, or, perhaps, a Paul Simon poster

I was six, and we were on our way to get a new car.

The apartment listing, spare and direct, stood apart from the exclamation points that forested her vision.

Obviously the place is unsafe . . . 

I came by to talk. Figured it was time to fix a few things.

Here, in the green glass light of the parlor, Swaingrove cultivates its memories.

E says the sky is fuller today and I say it isn’t. Meaning we aren’t significant so why would our surroundings be.

When it’s my turn to order coffee I look anywhere but her eyes and whisper “soy latte” like it’s a secret. When she asks my name I tell her. It doesn’t matter how you spell it.

*

The

Magnolia, Ambrosio, Valance stand still as three pillars. Amongst the ruins of the Roman Empire.

So here’s Anthony, twelve years later. He’s got this white pin on his right breast that reads MY INTERESTS ARE: ANIMALS & POSITIVITY.

You slept for a few hours after that, but I stayed awake, mostly wondering why you hadn’t yet scraped the popcorn texture off of the ceiling in your house. 

The bodies under there, in the corridor, were at an ends; by the time each person entered the airport, their desires were all set about the rooms like a seasoned, wet palette.

QUERY 5: About half the time, your APOSTROPHES and your QUOTATION MARKS don’t curl around the way they should— “ or ” , not " , and ‘ or ’ , not ' —which is how I know you are writing half of all your articles on your cellphone.

Destiny's Child third album track # 1 she plays as if I don't already know what’s up. She just wants me to remind her she's a queen so I play Coming to America, and we're okay for a few more years.

Later at night she looked by the fires of Ohio at the burn on her palm 

He wore these fuck-you neckties (one looked like a whole trout hanging down his chest) and bad jeans dyed mint green, lemon yellow, cake frosting blue.

Fourteen tourists had signed up for “Six Days in Glorious Vienna: Open Plan,” and since Kotoko and I were the only singles in the group, it was inevitable that we ended up rooming together at the hotel.

A boy in your science class starts sitting behind you on the school bus. He whispers into your hair that he’s known about atoms for as long as he can remember.

I look down Rue Acorn. Along the red brick factory I live in. And at first all I see are parked cars. Shadows. And the slow moving Sunday traffic farther up the block. Along  Rue Saint-Rémi.

You were right, I tell myself with confidence, there are no fucking fallen dogs out here. Just a sack of rice or side of beef. Plain and simple.

I’ve been told, he said, you can make a house out of magazines. Roll them up and seal them in something and stack them up in a grid formation. There are supports, of course. Has to be a framework.

Every night since she stays in, thumbing the wheel. She burns napkins and cotton swabs. She burns whatever she can find.