after Britney Spears

The camera pans—is this still
Mars? Oops. Gloss-

lip. Oops. Long-lashed eyes
gazing between the scraps.

Guttural purr. Oops I.
Did. It. Again. White girl

There was a Help Wanted sign at the florists. I had a car, so I walked in and applied. This was a time in my life when I’d decided anyone could do anything. In other words, I was an artist.

When I was young, I never kept a journal. Instead, my understanding of the world—and myself within in it—got wound up in 500-plus battered tapes that have followed me through life.

"Honestly, I don't care if language overtakes story." 

The thing I can't wrap my head around, when it comes to the 2003 Detroit Tigers, is what it must have been like to show up to work every day. What must it have taken, as the losses mounted – up to and

I was standing in line for a movie and a movie played in my head.
I was standing in line for a movie and the movie I was waiting to see strode through the lobby and out the front door.
I was

Dear Naomi,

Please find enclosed some clippings from the local fishwrapper.  I’ve underlined the juicy parts in blue pencil.  It’s complete kleptocracy down here.  You were right to leave.  I can’t

Most nights I would take communion with Willis Alan Ramsey, a one trick pony like me, but I hadn’t even run yet.

You need to know
the world used to be softer.
This new color sharpens & blinds.

When it arrived,
people crashed their cars,
stumbled hands over retinas & then
over ledges,

My first boyfriend collected knives. He was the kind of boy who listened to Metallica and Ozzy Osbourne, who liked to draw superheroes and werewolves, and was drawn to darkness and violence with the

Amoral Impurity

Picking at ingrown
pubes on the porch swing
in the sun on the first
summery day of May 
and the dogs reach up to lick
my cooch. This is not 
the first time today I’ve

I vomit discretion, magic tricks, a glass ashtray. I take a break
from vomiting & light a bottle rocket.

“Recorded learned and mixed in two days” sounds like exactly the sorta shenanigans we were all about.

That morning, I rolled over with the intention of apologizing. I'd meant everything I'd said, but none of it was enough for me to end anything. It was the hazards of a relationship; I had to decide if I was losing myself or becoming better.

I crave the lack of my thousand siblings...

For a moment, regardless of our lives, everything the light touches is warm and friendly, and we are all indeed in the same circle: Access Member Humans who love Access Member Dogs and can put up with their people for three hours because we also love baseball.

I am lonely and just learning how to say I'm lonely...

This Essay Isn't About the NBA Finals Because No One Here Cares About the NBA Finals

Jurgen Klopp, the coach of Liverpool’s soccer team, wears a black shirt and pale-framed glasses, just like the

When he wasn't looking / I snuck / a spoonful...

Of course, Jesus only had hyssop—a bitter wine on a wet sponge—during the passion, but that was not an option at the concession stand.

"My Favorite Hat," "Blue Hawaii Hat," and "Rust is a Color, the Tech Sergeant Told Me"

Read Kevin Mahler's Introduction to his ongoing 5-part "Portrait Series Paralleling Characters in HBO’s Deadwood with Contemporaneous Pop Country Musicians," and check out previous parts 1 and 2 and

That first year of having her, I would drive by myself, just to feel that relief of no anxiety. I felt tense even around my friends not because I didn't want to be around them, but because I needed a

"Review of the Eiffel Tower," "Something to Worry About," and "Misery Is a Little Gray Ceramic Pig"

When so much energy is spent on surveying the territory, adapting to the wonders and confusions of a new place, there isn’t always room to develop as a person.

Before my grandmother had a habit of running wild with the rabbits...