tree tree tree tree calvin calv hobbes

with an introduction from Matt Bell

I know that I should be sad, or at least look sad, or somber, as I go through the things in Johnny’s room.

A man was arrested for creating a labyrinth in an IKEA.

DeMisty Bellinger is the rarest of writers: the poet-novelist. She edits poetry at Malarkey Books and Porcupine Literary, but she’s also known for her incredible prose. (Despite what you read later in

doesn’t know how to give a PROPER blowjob
The spittle
of the sea
                        otherwise known as Jamaica Pond
dries hard on her eros:erring:elbow still deeper
resonating
in her

At three months shy of 36—one year past my baby deadline—I was nowhere near finding someone lasting

I don’t respond and two hours later he sends a photo of the dog.

Wary, ever vigilant, we peered into the berries for the blind white cursor blinking in an ecstasy of juice, carving invisible holes from the inside out.

there was no fiddle, but let’s say there was.

Alice sighs in the way only British people can sigh. Maybe it’s all the rain they have inhaled.

We went back and forth, hyping each other up, talking about the best summer of our lives and how we would never be this young again and if we pet an alpaca everyone would be jealous.

I am searching for the type of room that would change my life if I lived there, you know the one.

Wind, always strongest by water, whistles and whooshes, knocks a girl off her feet.

“Bandeau,” I type into the Tumblr search bar. The results load like a quilt of skin.

Jordan lit a post-coital cigarette and contemplatively stared at the ceiling.

“My ex was a Nazi,” he said.

“What?”

Most planets are probably so
much quieter than ours.

The room smelled like milk and sweat. I only got up for a few reasons; to crack a window, to change a diaper, to eat, and occasionally, to go for a walk.

I'm waiting for influenza in Virginia. Or the taste of something metal.

She could eat. She could get a little plump, not so plump that he wouldn’t like it, but plumper than before she knew him, when she had to stay thin and dainty so she could get married and become plump, though no more than he liked.

Tracey, what am I meant to do with all this shit?

Party snacks
platters of them
orange and puffed up
Moloko rasping from a corner

          there’s an awareness of space, of bug spray

You know what’s sad? When no one releases your sex tape.

And then there is the question of motherhood. And how it does or doesn’t fit into the feminist narrative, into our ideas of ourselves as liberated women.

If we accept the conventional ATF line, bootleggers are scoundrels of the worst sort, caring only for the almighty dollar, men who will poison you with hootch run through junk radiators and contaminated with everything from antifreeze to dead rats.

Girls with blue hands

I
Psychopathology
in the woods
Naked snow
Cold, bare thighs
keep the snow white.
Tie around a tree
Hide your ruby
ring in the dirt
Rub your hair
against the

Find your mark. As American as they come. Like this couple, standing a few feet to your left. Around your age, but taller, sturdier, sun-fed and muscular. Their smiles remind you of neatly racked milk bottles.