“I have a collection of small animals!” I announced one night at a friend’s party.
This might not have been the best headline for my match.com profile.

9. pearls for the gentry
10. marriage material
11. salvaged material
13. some burning islands

he whispered Fuck this shit, and I asked him what he meant.
All he said was I have to go and put me on hold. Now all I am sure of
is Whitney Houston in my ear.

how do you know how to make a
difference in my life? I’m so happy.
I’m at a news release from prison in
my head.

Gary Coleman walks into a bar and says something sassy, but the bartender’s a bear, so instead of replying he stands on a big rubber ball and juggles. There’s a song maybe too, in the foreground perhaps, something an organist might feel inclined to play.

Because my father dips himself / into the vagina of a Swedish woman // and is never found again, / my mother's heart dies.

By the time I hang up, the goats turn into Roger Clemens and Pedro Martinez. We smoke my last cigarettes, the three of us. 

Faith is a party you weren’t invited to, and God is a man
in a sheet with poked eyes to see;
you want to believe.

When we found the dead whale, we couldn’t recover the eye of it, and because I hadn’t lost my mother, I managed to survive. 

Jeff is driving me nuts. he's a fucking showboating liar. Walking around here like he owns the place. He only owns us.

She says the moon is just an overflowing ashtray with butts buried in the dark side.

I keep coming back to the church.  

I tell you I wish my dad would come out as trans like Caitlyn Jenner &/or late-in-life gay like my ex-boyfriend’s father.

On your way home from work,
you stop at a liquor store for smokes.

legs apart, wrists willing: I am teaching myself to love sasha grey

for Rachel Corso

Have you tried all our salsa flavors before?
This is mild (not medium), this is spicy, this is verde
(That means green), this is volcanic, this is you

Not listening.

My new friend interrupted me to say, “You seem like you live like a real artist.”
My new friend had already been twice published by The New Yorker.
I thought maybe she had confused me with herself.

Let the okra go to waste, steal oranges from the
corner store. I'll tell you that I love you like I've
loved no one else. Our bodies are made to be
useful, move fast. The fastest man in

Karl Barth

let's forget the time we fought

and just say

that i have a specific kind of fear

it happens

sometimes 

when i am in the club

thinking about the pieces of my

i'm fucking useless and there's nothing going for me
*parents call*
everything's amazing, i'm the best i've ever been

wow it's late. i'm so tired
*yawns*
better eat a

Painting of a Vietnamese restaurant lunch menu.

Painting of a woman being pulled out of a river
by her hair and she is smiling and her hair is dry.

Painting of a war-torn meadow:

The summer you learned who was dealing what. You were applying to programs, your pointillism, neat in ink, when a wind disappeared your drawing.

the sky is gray and you will not stop talking
about balance
this focus has become your baby
for at least the past three days
last week it was tarot cards 
and a techno

All I wanted was the haze of a worn gown / of sleep after the scrape of that / honey-sipped night.