Echo pressed her index finger to the Facebook icon on her phone, opening up a chat with her recent ex, Morgan, who was still typing.

My husband is a proficient fighter. He catalogs the inconsistencies between the things I say and things I do. Against this tactic, I have no defense. For he is right, but what he fails to understand is the internal consistency in my inconsistency.

“There are some things that just cannot be reconciled,” the duck quacked, as it waddled across the path.

The man was disturbed. There seemed to be no end to the rain's falling, but only he was

We spent most of the night watching Billy Madison and eating ice cream and cookies and building a fort.

Later that night, past midnight, I quietly hear her leave the apartment. I don’t stir. I don’t ask her what, where or why. I stay perfectly still and pretend to be asleep.

Before Sasquatch’s girlfriend got into rats, she had dogs. I don’t remember how many exactly, but a lot. One dog was called Pee Dog. Whenever I fell asleep on the La-Z-Boy, he soaked my leg

TIP TOP VACATION PERFORMANCE

Two women velcroed a husky, mesh tank top
in order to separate the men from the boys.
Then, 20 aisles apart, mimed the crucifixion.
Words I’m akin to grasp start in

3/31: The day is young. Dress smart today Capricorn, big things on the horizon. When standing in front of new people, don’t forget to smile. People are drawn to you, but you forget to drop your

My mother mentioned Darren to me only once. I was in college by then.

Oort Poetica

The way ice can become a verdant spring. Horace, you know the way we stare through lenses; how we bathe the sky in radio waves. Do you understand what it means to listen to a body

Everything that could have possibly budged already had, anything neglectable was long ago done so.

My writing professor said to me that in order to get better, you had to dismantle the person you were, because that person was killing you. I kept wondering: Why did a killer love me?

Mama was a truck. A Ford Bronco, to be exact.

The First January Sun I Want to Share with You

At least a handful of sunshine,
the best ataractic; I
steady myself in the russet
downpour, attempting to trace
down this new feeling,
like a

Your gym is perhaps your favorite thing about Hattiesburg. Your student budget is tight, but you’ll manage to eek out thirty a month somehow—you have for the last three years.

The day before isolation, I celebrate my birthday, unwed, the first of its kind in my adult life, my divorce from a great man with whom I shared an OK eleven years, finalized by way of a $250 internet

I’d spend the night there on Saturday nights, get up Sunday morning and drive to my church and preach. I didn’t find God because I wasn’t looking for him. I was looking for me but I didn’t find him either.

Nirvana

I don’t think it was nirvana playing
I don’t know what it was
in the ocean sometimes
warm water is pulsing under the cold surface
I don’t know if I really mean it. I mean,
maybe it’s a

Maybe you can do this. It’s not your idea. But maybe.

Previously on...
Part 3  ||  Part 2  ||  Part 1  ||  Prologue