/pəˈzeʃ.ən/

One morning I woke up with my right scapula in my mouth. You would think that is physically impossible, but in the case of demonic possessions it is actually more normal than not.

I tolerated Marcus and Haley because I knew their drill. Marcus would pick me up with drugs coursing through his system

I reminded myself that I spent just as many lonely afternoons in the State Library of Victoria with a pile of international Vogues as I did at a Goodwill in the Valley.

I was sobbing too loud for the men’s room and I was in no shape to explain myself so I settled on the supply closet next to it. After a couple minutes of moping I got a BBM (we had to have Blackberries then, for whatever reason) from Jarrett. “Were fuck are you bro?”

A year wrapped in a day, a teardrop at the climax of every way that wounded, furthering the wounds.

That was the world then…

That was the world then….bawdy cars and tawdry thoughts and rundown wannabe skyscrapers brownie baked by the sun that just looked cheap against the horizon and everybody

I hold myself in the plank position. The little dog sits on the rug watching. It’s a very expensive rug. She’s not supposed to be here. He’s up on the purple couch and I do not know what he is

I was zipped up to my nose in a sleeping bag, inhaling moist breath mingled with olfactory ghosts of campfires and wild sex past.

We paid the cover charge and stood among the young homosexuals of Columbus.

I never wanted to run this ship. Frankly, I’d rather spend my time writing.

Hello,

the worst thing about stopping Ambien was that I never did it with anybody else.

I did it alone in my bathtub.

I did it alone, smoking in the water, & when it kicked in I’d let the

1.

Remember when you would sit on the floor of my lavender painted room when I was 15 and you were 21? You’d twirl a dreadlock around your finger looking up at the wall of Teen People Magazine

a monstera I brought as a housewarming gift; bookcases betraying a brilliant, associative mind—the LOTR trilogy, a chess board, tomes on capitalism and ecology, The Power Broker, an anthology of gay poetry, more Caro books on LBJ, a poetry book I’d gifted atop the dusty shelves

I worried I had magically bloated between 9 a.m. and lunch time, even though I’d only eaten the prescribed six saltine crackers.

I couldn't fully recall the Simpsons episode in which Marge buys a near-identical pink Chanel dress.

Ten years ago, I made a temporary move from New York to Cambridge, Massachusetts, for a research fellowship for my novel. Within a month, I met Gino, a tall lawyer with a pronounced Roman nose,

Two months in, we began to confide our secrets to each other. Her early brush with benzos. My peer-pressure-prone passivity.

I pledged to him two things: one, that I would hex the ones that hurt him, and two, that I would write him poetry.

i felt you were floating now with them, in a bubble in space, the bubble has a name, ecstasy, keta, speed, coke, that’s the name of the bubble.

Autumn was the season of fire. Boys and houses burned pure white holes into the night, and I self-immolated in every room but the little one I shared with you.

Almost every day, the sitcom actor goes on Instagram to tell his five million followers what he knows about race, class, and - more often than not, women.

Charming shyness paired with a love of dancing the Charleston in heels in the street past midnight. I kissed her bloodied knees.

2 is the grade I was in when I thought I loved Lucy. 2 is the number of times Lucy was arrested for meth in a single day. 2 is the number of Xanies she must have taken the night she showed up to my welcome home party, because she was fucking sloppy.

Jay arrived once a week, every week, for sex. He was a dental student, worked  Wednesdays at a clinic near my house so it was easy for him to call to see if I was free. I made sure that I was. He

Jordan lit a post-coital cigarette and contemplatively stared at the ceiling.

“My ex was a Nazi,” he said.

“What?”