He was black, handsome, and nonthreatening, so white people loved him.

you have probably peed with everyone you’ve ever loved, including the woman you do right now

When he drops you off at home you realize the soles of your feet are covered in tar.

Sometimes I imagine I’ll get a long email from her, explaining why, when a family reunion stopped her from coming on the trip, she gave up on our friendship. Did I somehow offend her?

 Where was my pimp? My boss? My daddy? I wanted a man from a Lana Del Rey song. 

I was nineteen, still felt like a kid, and Tom seemed to like me. 

The diary didn’t have many entries, but it revealed how lonely Sarah had felt.

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

I smile now, waiting, always waiting, for you to reappear and remember me ...

My friends and I would see you on the streets and say you looked like a villain. Slicked back black hair, tall and thin, distrusting gaze, but handsome. All sinister swagger.

1985: the year of “high-risk” and Careless Whispers. His appearance was brief —lasting all of ten second— but there he was, following an interview between Debbie Harry and Nick Rhodes on the Palladium. 

Last Christmas, you asked for my latest address and sent a postcard all the way from Paris. There was a close-up shot of Hemingway’s face on the front. On the back, you wrote: “You deserve all the good in the world.” I took a picture of it but never sent anything back.

One guy told me I didn’t look like my online photos while we sat al fresco in a bougie hotel in Venice. He smelled of vinegar. I ordered two crab sandwiches. I ate one and got the other to go.

This diner has been here since 1949 but I am sure that no one has ever looked as beautiful as you do sitting on these red vinyl seats. 

FARMHAND LONGS FOR LOVE FROM ABOVE

Thought regaling twilight with porch-grown ukulele melodies would suffice to lure somefowl over but since experience

All the Lovesick attendees were gathered outside to listen to the event’s MC, but he was struggling to figure out how to turn on his mic.

The night before the Super Bowl, we were drunk in Miami after hours of non-stop tequila Sprites.

My almost-ex was freaking out in the way only men with egos can.

There’s a picture of you at queer prom, in the photo booth, faces alight with total bliss.

The text said: Hey! I think I just saw you cross the street (I’m in the red Prius). How are you?

I suppose I was in a conspiratorial mood when I told you that I don’t always feel like a man.

(Iowa City 1995)

What I think I want, is Inez . . . Fuck! Now it’s a blur. Drawing. Rather, a dream in which I’m drawing.

the history of countries is the story of roaming. And maps are relatively new inventions in the human narrative 

I followed him up the stairs up to his apartment and once inside he made parachutes, wrapping loose MDMA in tissue paper.