One evening when I was fifteen, back in 2009, my ballet teacher arrived at the studio wearing a shit-eating grin. Jeff loved to gossip, and he spoke with a showy Southern twang that made the juice of every secret dribble down our fingers.

Bible | Vers

Top to Bottom | scan my profile | For Christ’s Sake | Sing Jesus’ Name | I gospel & apostle | Book of Vers | My rural bottom’s up | My crop /top | down along the road | a hym(n) in

I was standing in line for a movie and a movie played in my head.
I was standing in line for a movie and the movie I was waiting to see strode through the lobby and out the front door.
I was

When he wasn't looking / I snuck / a spoonful...

Of course, Jesus only had hyssop—a bitter wine on a wet sponge—during the passion, but that was not an option at the concession stand.

Soon sunlight would be replaced by nighttime.  I felt this, the same way my grandma could feel the rain coming on.  

He watched the door, and saw that it wanted to open.

I remember playing some songs at four in the morning and asking if you liked them. What the songs sounded like doesn’t matter now. I only knew a little about songs back then but I know a bit more

"Unlikely to Condemn" and "Different Circumstances"

From the long wooden balcony, from the house that overlooks a forest that is almost bluegreen in springtime and a witchy red during the fall, the snow slants through the trees like a new

geometry,

Naoko knew all too well how difficult it was to imbibe the air of a foreign culture. She had matriculated for a year at the University of Santa Barbara to study saxophone and marked each day as a progression from one shameful moment to the next.

Roxane Gay took me out to dinner five years ago. It was Roxane, Ashley C. Ford and me. We were in Indianapolis and it was the first time I'd met either of them. I remember thinking wow this is one

OUTLAW LOVE

I can listen to “Thirteen” by Big Star and pretend
I am thirteen back in my flamingo
bedroom and a boy
would come to my

She almost said yes until she saw the stain.

The one and only time I saw Herman French naked was when he was toweling off after a shower.  Herman was my bunkmate two years ago at Camp Thunderbird.  He had the smallest penis I’d ever seen. 

Luke walks that line inbetween doing his booty-shaking and grinding on stage and also seeming like your “cool” youth pastor and that's not a knock. I love Luke Bryan and there's something about him that seems so genuine and sweet, I can't even picture him being fussy or rude with anyone.

Destiny's Child third album track # 1 she plays as if I don't already know what’s up. She just wants me to remind her she's a queen so I play Coming to America, and we're okay for a few more years.

Bro Country is not all that different from dudes in general and real life. I've dated enough white dudes and went to college in Kentucky and I've been to, like, twenty-five Dave Matthews Band concerts, so, trust me, I know this stuff.

I had runoff all over. I hadn’t escaped the heartland.