You HAVE TO MOVE!

In Morocco, a long time ago, I was orphaned.

- Her: 7 hours, 13 minutes

- Me: 24 minutes

One grotesque morning, our friend Dani—frequent companion in cocaine-fueled escapades—stumbled from the spare room, blacked-out, around sunrise.

  At six years old, I wanted to be a boy. I cut my hair short. I wore blue shorts. I ran around with my shirt off. I threw oranges at my sister and her friends.

On the television, Paul Hollywood is doling out handshakes - I'd settle for eye contact from my husband-

We landed on Court TV but didn’t watch it. We talked for five hours.

I suggested we arm wrestle as I did with every boy. I was a pick me and for my spreadsheet.

It is the night before I will meet my future ex wife. Neither of the mirrors are skinny.

It was summer heat 
And the breath of living someone else’s life 

Sisters remain sisters even when one is going through nuclear-grade poisoning and the other is directing a DIY haircut through a phone screen.

I was a woman obsessed, before and after the overdose.

The thing about being a lesbian in New York City is that on the third Thursday of any given month you’ll have to stand in a hot Brooklyn bar that is absolutely teeming with gay people. At least four

We finish dinner and the waiter comes with shots of limoncello for the table.

64

What violence is there in giving someone a name, carving out Ida's real name

of these fourteen strips, lacing up the endless observations each day

in the deformed images of words that tell

I don’t want anything serious. But come to raves with me. Take drugs with me!

I laugh and say, “is that a Rupi Kaur poem?”

Over coffee, he told me he thought I dumped him last time because we had sex too soon.

Her umbilical right to intimacy makes me wonder if I ever left the womb.

The pain reminds me: I am here. I am real. I matter.​​​​​​​

Did I want to fuck her? Or did I want to be her?

It’s the question everyone asks but I’ve never felt it until now.

The hamster was actually a mouse. We were calling a lot of things by the wrong names back then.

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

Prompt

# Tasks

Write a breakup text.
End relationship as clearly and concisely as possible.
Express disappointment, but be vague.
Make it clear that no further contact is desired or

While trying to sleep, I abandon the sex fantasies and imagine the feeling of being held by another. They’re soft and accepting and faceless, one of the pillow-folk from the Ringling Museum.