Now, I have a death machine.

My six-year-old son stretches his arms to their limit as he describes his latest nightmare.

There is one boat out every day.
We are never packed in time to take it.

She flips a stool on the bar like a lamb
 

Charming shyness paired with a love of dancing the Charleston in heels in the street past midnight. I kissed her bloodied knees.

There’s so much advice
in the world, such as: if you’re feeling
very low, put on a suit

Mom calls at nine, eleven her time.
She can't sleep, asks me to tell her a story

Hi, me again

I made a call
and I lived. 
It was the longest
life of my life.

In the past two years, three noteworthy and talented authors have each gained national acclaim for their groundbreaking releases in 2020 and 2021: Emily K. Michael’s Neoteny: Poems (Finishing Line

2 is the grade I was in when I thought I loved Lucy. 2 is the number of times Lucy was arrested for meth in a single day. 2 is the number of Xanies she must have taken the night she showed up to my welcome home party, because she was fucking sloppy.

In December 1969, the fate of thousands was discovered through televised lottery. All three-hundred and sixty-six days of the year, including the 29th of February, had been typed on one-by-four-inch

I think Westerners, and Americans especially, struggle with “autofiction” since their conceptions of self are so fixed.

“Now look what you did,” I said with a cliched kind of obvious indignity. 

Do you remember the names of everyone you swallow

A man walking in the dark, out of the light of the lampposts, for instance, seemed to be approaching us. I imagined he was going to ask us for a light, or the time, or directions, something bland and traditional. He might also have wished us physical harm, or at least wished to make our valuables his own.

One of your axolotls has eaten the other
and every week you clean its twenty-litre tank
of cannibal excrement.

When snow reaches a certain height it begins to feel as though it will soon absorb you, take you and make you a part of its frozen essence.

Here’s the plan: we’ll become high-class prostitutes. “Courtesans,” I say, “like ancient Greece.”

I hadn’t attempted to drive away. I remained there. I was prepared to take my punishment. I thought that should count for something. 

i look like eurotrash
in your red sweatshirt
and blue sweat shorts but

Jay arrived once a week, every week, for sex. He was a dental student, worked  Wednesdays at a clinic near my house so it was easy for him to call to see if I was free. I made sure that I was. He

During the pandemic, I became — and as someone with obsessive compulsive disorder, I don’t use this word lightly — obsessed with a TV show called Prodigal Son. The most important character to me, Lou

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.