Somebody is going to roofie them, I said. Dave laughed uncertainly. 

It was the summer of 2018, and I had just returned home to California from Italy, where my relationship exploded after we had lived together for only four months.

He warned me once about being all-in with poetry.

It doesn’t have to hurt.

I look at the curtain. I haven’t touched the red box since my new friend from Russian class opened it. It feels like a different object now that she’s touched it.

but allwhite right unvexed real people-pleaser

You are not proud of the answers you’ve given him. But as you leave, it strikes you – you are proud you’ve answered him with the truth.

Perhaps this is why trans people crave romantic love with a curdling, obscure undercurrent of self-doubt, of rage.

“Are you being held against your will?”

“I think so? There’s kind of an implication.”

“An implication?”

When you rearrange my insides you leave me for dead.

I think the interview went pretty well, although at one point I remember asking the interviewer to speak slower this time, using simpler words, words with no syllables if possible. 

Please dont forget to play. Can you remember 
the last time you danced?

After three flights, two chicken buses, and a strange bout of illness, I arrived in El Nido, a small backpacker nest at the far edge of the Philippines.

Wind in the ears like / Water ungathering / In and out of baskets.

When his heart is an ashtray—cigarette butts put out on a surface that will not flinch

why does it feel so much harder to see something happen to someone else than have it happen to you?

When I finally swallow, it feels like an admission of failure.

The door is broken, the home is not 
as we begin to compare our splinters 
before our squinting eyes.

In Crow’s version, Proverbs become advice on how to tell if someone gives good head.

What author’s (dead or alive) persona is aspirational? 
Maybe Joan Didion, the super thin wrists, the iconic image on a tote bag. I just want to keep on writing books. 

nature doesn't give a shit about what I want

She buys us both mineral waters from the MoMA cafe.

I’ve been on a lot of dates. I don’t consider myself an expert, but I can tell you how to get asked on a second: be as mysterious as possible, ask as many questions about the person as you can, let

So what if, slightly buzzed, she witnessed jubilant souls who succored maggots with their wounds, or improvised love songs to Señor Suboxone

Beckett throws another party

As the day proceeds, we end up chatting. I tell the man with the snowflake tattoo: I thought you were in a biker gang but you’re all just working on Excel.