I saw her in front of us then, and she struck me: white parka down to mid-calf meeting white Ugg boots, white hood drawn over head.

Usually I’d just as soon look away from cruelty, but Lemuel flung that chicken square at my face and my first instinct was to swat her, fretting her clipped wings and shrieking like a raspy old woman, down on the heads of the others. Simple reflex.

For a few years, before Carl’s dad won a scratch-off ticket and no one ever saw him again, I called Carl my best friend.

We laughed when he called it a “Shake-n-Bake,” but then looked nervously around the room; the crew veterans weren’t laughing.

Hey girl, heard you’re on the job hunt—and the place I work is hiring! It’s a bit weird, but… Do you want to be a matchmaker? 

Charlie would never cannibalize me; he’d have nothing to eat. 

We lost my dad somewhere under the blacklights of Club Tabu.

My happiest memories all involve an intense desire to be strangled. 

I do not want to talk about how I need to drink more water. The Doctor in Her Eighth Year of Practice has already told me, in so many words, that the life I save might be my own.

I posted a picture of my rarely used kayak on Facebook late at night.

after fiona apple

i've waited many years— i didn’t know i was waiting— my myself waited til no one was looking, and it ran, and it ran and— 

all my selves run from me. when i look up they’re

Mama says mad freezes your face, so little girls with feelings be careful. Anger shows ugly over time, lines between your brows or pulling down the corners of your mouth. Girls should smile, say

On Sunday morning, at eight central in middle Tennessee, I watch the Grand Prix. This season is the 70th anniversary of the FIA Formula One World Championship, which feels like enough of a reason to

This is the Santa crushing it on Etsy.

This is the Santa denied unemployment.

This is the Santa whose Zoom background brought his therapist to tears.

This Santa doesn’t give a shit—he’s a

First, I visited my father’s house. After I returned home, my mother asked me to bring her there in the dark of night. We got on the highway, drove north, then took the second exit, but that was all I

She lives with her mom

two states away

and I wish this was all

I've failed to teach her. 

rsvp

for sacha

you’re a bound cloud
mist locked down    skipped
across the lake, I can tell

I woosh your eye’s pallet
missing calls      flatten
hunger      a slow drawl
boy  with

I’m now constructing a mental pool for how long these two can keep up the corporate veneer before they go insane or at least pop Gene in the teeth or at least say Okay you’re done no more pineapple and then whisk away the tray of pineapple Mom and I have not stopped noshing and ogling and noshing...

Luxury

This September the cool
air has come quickly
and I’m in love with how
it crawls into my belly,
smooths its long creases
on the bones of my esophagus.
What a luxury — to feel
   

1955

Nothing is earned unless something is lost. You lost your father in a car accident, as mommy explained. You are less than a year old and don’t have language for anything, much less grief. The

daughter

Her mother sometimes talks in her sleep
while she, so it’s told, whimpers or stretches.
Her brother twitches restlessly through the night.
He’s got finer hair and stronger teeth,
their

When Michael left for the West, I experienced what in Portuguese is known as saudade, an intense nostalgia for a person.

CHIAROSCURO

-

Your hand and its physical touch
fuschia as you brush

The inside
of desire and nothing

I'll say it
on the skin of your tongue

Name and unname
your eyes and their

sour

i wanted
in the way
that want follows

bedraggled
a half moon
of bites

it starts
like this
slowly

rara saw
FIRE FIRE
in my eyes

hard to describe
to you who
no longer

The first time I went rock climbing, I lasted 30 minutes.

On Shaving my Legs for the First Time

the offending hairs that sprout from dark skin
like unwelcome ants that toil through the night

hairs that signal virility on my father’s chin
draw taunts