When his heart is an ashtray—cigarette butts put out on a surface that will not flinch

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

When I finally swallow, it feels like an admission of failure.

The door is broken, the home is not 
as we begin to compare our splinters 
before our squinting eyes.

In Crow’s version, Proverbs become advice on how to tell if someone gives good head.

What author’s (dead or alive) persona is aspirational? 
Maybe Joan Didion, the super thin wrists, the iconic image on a tote bag. I just want to keep on writing books. 

nature doesn't give a shit about what I want

She buys us both mineral waters from the MoMA cafe.

I’ve been on a lot of dates. I don’t consider myself an expert, but I can tell you how to get asked on a second: be as mysterious as possible, ask as many questions about the person as you can, let

So what if, slightly buzzed, she witnessed jubilant souls who succored maggots with their wounds, or improvised love songs to Señor Suboxone

Beckett throws another party

As the day proceeds, we end up chatting. I tell the man with the snowflake tattoo: I thought you were in a biker gang but you’re all just working on Excel. 

I was sitting in a coffee shop I used to go to. This was in Bangkok.

Let’s be clear:

You destroy things.

I think a lot about Annie Ernaux saying that she writes like she's going to die afterward. The principle works for all kinds of writing, not just autofiction—it's an urgency that makes the voice more electric, that drives you to completion, that's more honest because it has no concern for consequences.

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

Do you think I won’t understand because I never finished school?

Only the best of girls get to play fantasy football and today, that’s me.

But she didn’t delete the video. Instead, she posted it on TikTok.

I guess there is a measure of wish fulfillment in the detail of my description of Anna and Tom’s apartment. Sometimes I ask myself if this makes the arc of the novel a kind of revenge fantasy.

Clem wasn’t worried that Joshua would be a catfish.

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.

Before that glorious year, I was relegated to the “husky” section, which is clothing not for dogs but overweight children.

"There are no actual pages. They are hollow. They are just for show. I think how perfect that is, how much of the literary world is just for show. Hollow. Superficial. More often than not it doesn’t matter the words inside, only the name on the book, the book as an object, the author as object. Author as persona. Author as capitalistic commodity. Minor celebrity. A name to drop at a New York City party."

It was bad today.

I stood in Trader Joe’s two hours

Anna Krivolapova discusses voice.