She lives with her mom

two states away

and I wish this was all

I've failed to teach her. 

I’m now constructing a mental pool for how long these two can keep up the corporate veneer before they go insane or at least pop Gene in the teeth or at least say Okay you’re done no more pineapple and then whisk away the tray of pineapple Mom and I have not stopped noshing and ogling and noshing...

The first time I went rock climbing, I lasted 30 minutes.

On Shaving my Legs for the First Time

the offending hairs that sprout from dark skin
like unwelcome ants that toil through the night

hairs that signal virility on my father’s chin
draw taunts

I WRITE PANIC

into the locked kitchen
cabinet, china chipped
& sticky. i write
myself into a bottle
of vodka, sloshing
in waves of bitter
padded tongue.
i write the morning
green &

I once let the person I loved prick my ribcage with a needle a thousand times so I wouldn’t forget. A collection of dots arcing messily into two black brackets.

Describing Feminine Energy

I am electric-orange.
I am strong legs running
through a poppy field, two arms
thrown open, both feet meeting
soil, moon-face turned up to
the sun, with lips like

I am writing you now from a city we scored with nomadic walking fourteen months ago. During that trip I had been ill. 

In this dappled language, like a woods painted by Neil Welliver, in and out of our attention, animals wander in the camouflage. They are highlighted by our attention: each stands in a yellow bar of

Dan disowned my sister and me via email a year ago

Many days I realize my dreams are fiction half way through.

in this one you’re a six foot / two hundred pound prize

Why did Train A leave while Train B was still getting ready?

"Why This Pregnant Woman Walked Out of a Subway Restaurant in Tears" and "The Return of Sad Beck, Thank God"

"A Diaristic Quality but Everything Is Still Gone" and "Jonas Mekas at the Tate Modern"

I like sex in fiction to be full of ambivalence—undeniable lust mixed with doubt or disgust. I have done things with lovers I don’t want to tell anyone. 

Previously on...

Chapter 1a: Converging
Chapter 1b: Crisis 

In contrast to wild animals, pets are timelines left on the floor. These models of accelerated, abridged lives can be found to the right of the Lazy Boy and the magazine rack.

I’m standing on top of Drew Barrymore’s star and the song’s issuing from a hot-purple Sony boom box someone set up a few feet away.

If you cut my leg and peel away the muscle, there’s a family living inside