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Circle Circle Dot Dot

I think I caught Ugly

Circle Circle Dot Dot

Nothing by itself looked wrong, but when she looked at it all together it just didn’t look right.

WHAT YOU WANT I AIN’T GOT IT

WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!

Falling in love with your friend even though he’s stubborn and afraid

Don't look at me like that.

Ostkreuz

If the passengers were to speak with their tongues, who knew what kind of indecencies would emerge?

Theories about the Gun Buried in a Shoebox at the Back of Your Son’s Closet

by Beth Sherman 1. It was given to him by your ex-husband because he’s a kid who’s lost interest in video games, school, sports, and anything that does not involve sitting in his room alone for hours at a time. 2. It’s been passed down from your

The Car

It’s holy magic,

Arbutus Don’t Bleed

If you open my heart I’ll tell you what God knows.

The Goshawks

You think I’m joking about the goshawks, but I am deadly serious.

The Big Grid

I wish I had your life, the girl in Omaha wrote.

Ad Astra

“How do you spend your days?” I ask, not sure if I want to hear the answer.

A dream

thoughts are covered by old bed-sheets.

Fred and Mauve

They waste their lives this way, holding out for a fairy tale existence.

Suplex

Gran is very old and her bones are brittle, so her chest caves in. But she’s alive.

Whirl

the spins were moving

Into the Pit

A life lived at terminal velocity.

updated bio.docx (Or, Another Possible Explanation For What My Problem Is)

Nisha is so aware that her life and everything in it is absurd.

Madness

Going back to work.

i had a dream last night that Stone Cold Steve Austin was helping me rearrange furniture and i kept calling him Stone instead of his actual name but he was fine with it

and i’m so thankful he’s here with me

YuleKing

...several pallets of long-burn firewood: her lifeblood, delivered faithfully to her doorstep atop a stinking mountain...

love letter to the moon or maybe my adderall prescription or maybe something else entirely

it’s so hard to care for something as a hobby.

Phone Calls

We circle Scott Lake three times a day, starting at the edge and working inward and dumb Jesse duct taped the radio button so it only plays one station, 101.5 FM CLASSIC.

Coming Home

Everyone is always ripped open here–it must be something in the air.

Waiting For The Dealer

Twenty years ago, I was a young boy who imagined himself to be a future rock star.

bitch

He told himself that he was disgusted by his behavior and couldn't believe that he was able to stoop so low.

Evacuation

One could never be sure that the worst wouldn’t happen again.

Wit's End

Now we come to the present day: the age of the prefabricated punchline.

Forfeiture of Nuance in the Rise of AI

What happens to artists if society settles for mediocrity?

Momo Twins

They opened their eyes to each other at twenty-seven weeks.

Band on the Run

Violence permeated most aspects of our lives.

A to Z

An Encyclopedic essay

Eduardo

I don’t even know how Eduardo got the bottle rocket he shot himself with— you have to cross the state border to buy fireworks ‘cause they’re illegal in the city.

why

A Visual Poem

we all need

A Visual Poem

Gesticulating

A Visual Poem

Oklahoma, 1985

We exchange nods and start down the hill, feeling exhilarated as we pick up speed.

Whisper

It took Michelangelo three years to sculpt David. It took Miss Livity one year to create a monster.

A Life Well Slept

Dedicated to my old mattress, wherever you are.

Bioluminescence

a sudo-Ku

In which the alien from "Alien" plays basketball

in space, no one can hear the net go swish-swish.

Through Some Coincidence

It’s just the rattling of the warm, yellow grass.

Grief

“Made with love by Paula”

GAZE

I come to him every day, every day in a new shirt.

The Would-Be Thief Pauses to Read About Homer’s Iliad

I hear the Famous Poet scoffs at the idea of an after-life that caresses us, preferring to believe in the remote Disneyland of the dead though even he must know that wherever the dead live, they’re not resting in peace.

Night Librarian in the Lower Stacks

Kenny asks me to retrieve books from the lower stacks and it dawns on me that he’s scared, he’s really scared.

The Power of Love

She pressed the trigger on the reacquired mace and yelled FUCKERS! YOU FUCKERS! YOU FUCKERS! through squinty eyes and indiscriminate aim.

The Name Of The Buyer Was Not Disclosed

The representative from the auction house made him feel stupid for thinking it would appear at his compound intact, as it first had walked this land some eighty million years ago.

He, Clarius

... as if tired, falls to the floor and Clarius turns to face the noise, but not his entire body, Clarius is not, like the other patrons...

Nesting Bowls

I’m not complaining, I love him but also cooking and baking, too, most of all

Tell Me That One Again

She's told me this one enough that I get a 25% contact high just hearing it again.

Thank God

You were mostly next door, glaring at the mass of nondescript sports-club-people, perched high above their matching neon t-shirts in your glue-studded platforms.

Lost Arts

[N]o one knows how to make homemade pierogies anymore.

Troubles

The bar had seen more ivory knocked loose than a Zimbabwe poachers convention.

Light Switch

And I just say, “Do it.” It comes out of me like it’s not even me, and now I’m terrified.

seventeenhundred

Previously published in "you stupid slut" (out of print)

pantoum for not drinking at home

After MNJames

national bohemian, renegade poet laureate of baltimore city

who else can trace the cracks in every midtown dive

Rememberary

I’m feeling better than I was earlier, you said as you leaned in.

Midsummer Commoner

I think you are proud but unsure, but do not know for sure

On Speaking

Honey // engage me

Stupid in Love

I’m Devon & I’m / crazy! & stupid! in love!

To You, In All Your Brilliance:

Summer never lasts as long as we intend.

Pickup Zone at Conestoga Mall

Everything is perfect except for her dad honking the horn

Work Crush

I wonder / do you think about that moment / in every meeting now / or did you feel none of it

Call & Response

kindly throttle me

Another Wave

I want to replace my windshield wipers / for real this time. Want a tiara for my trouble.

An Update to Your Order

i'm so / gone for you still. so gone baby / but your 2 hashbrowns and / side of horseradish aren't.

Boy Crazy: The Reboot

where I do eyeliner, tall on wheels / eat hot pretzel, roll out to hold your / hot hand, hardwoods trembling our legs

Santa

I grabbed a cigarette with sweaty fingers and took my first drag in five years, eleven months and twelve days.

journal (take #4)

dear diary, i also can no longer imagine having a lover worth complaining about.

It Could Happen at Any Moment

No, I persist. I’ve never heard of him, I say, while looking for an exit.

Cancellation

Hours and hours of people hitting and shooting.

Has This Ever Happened to You?

You agree to let them go Turbo Team on the couches, because how else are they expected to expel this excess energy?

Dan Flashes, This Is Just To Say

Forgive me / their patterns were / so bright / and so cool.

Hold Me to Your Ground (Metalloid Maniac x Reader Fanfiction)

He is so strong! And so sad.

we’re both just here for the zipline

pardon m\y splash, i'll trade your hand for this pool.

A study of the common vampire

It is a common misconception that vampire’s teeth point downwards.

Fee Fee’s Curse

“You are a troublesome white child who deserves a little fright to show you your place.”

How to Travel to a Parallel Universe

People are kind to each other, more patient, no one honks in frustration, even in the most suffocating traffic.

The Guest Room

He fell silent, still frowning. I had the feeling he was having second thoughts as to whether I was worthy of his precious gift of disclosure.

Jello Melon

Another night, another bonfire along the Ossipee River.

I am Digging a Hole and I Cannot Stop Digging

I asked them for the hundredth time why they have to go looking anyway.

Divorce-o-rama: Divorce as a Dark Ride

You smile and feel hopeful and don’t mind the empty heads, and you imagine your own children and husband fondly.

I'm Only Doxxing You Because I Care

He has made an apartment where the ceiling / and wall meld like oceans.

I Went to Disney World and All I Got Was This Identity Crisis

They were all still out there. Working. Moving. Climbing. And, while it was still too fresh for me to envy them to any great extent, it wasn’t too soon to start feeling like an outcast.

Love Letter to My City

to the route 7 bus driver

Hot Streak

Like you, I’ve read studies—well, summaries of studies—about how inaccurate recall is when forced upon intense or traumatic events.

another blue lemon please

but then i was solid, unmoving...

Growing Up With a Low Rent Robin Williams

Between his slurs and stumbles, he was his own worst secret-keeper, a walking confession before he even hit the living room.

Maps

As record-keeping, and as way of making your life a little more organized, and as a kind of diary, and as way of seeing and learning your new town even more.

growing up

i hate saying that out loud...

ode to the cybertruck (derogatory)

hailed as a genius only by fools—

your honor, i did it for the vine

i did it for the giraffe in my house

The Egg Essay

I move even closer to the window while I watch this husband and wife, this mom and dad, hide eggs all over the yard.

Without an Obvious, Reasonable Explanation

Anything is possible!

Running into an Old Classmate at the Grocery Store

Good, how are you?

The Jeff and Jenny Trilogy

I remember being told to go inside, to stay inside, and feeling a firm social pressure to pretend I couldn't hear the little pop from the .22 that meant another cat, half bald from mange, was dead.

Afterlife

She slots 50 dollars into the charity jar behind the cash register and silently bids her thanks for the alimony.

Poem for Our Friends Who Moved Away

Is this the last time we’re all at the beach? Better not to know.

The Runaway WWII Jeep

“If the jeep won’t start, you can use the choke; but never use the throttle.”

The White Pages

Reprinted from Black Moon Magazine

Overcoming a Fear of Firearms

invisible things that will render me beatific

Hallowed

The only thing he ever really did wrong was not be in love with me, and as fucked up as I was, I could never truly fault him for it.

When She Was High At Dinner

[I]t was a real joy to watch her eat.

The Absence of a Diet Coke

Can I get diet capitalism?

Shutting your Hand in the Door

You enter first.

Fear and Loathing Below the Mason-Dixon

Politics in The South is just an over-complicated suicide pact.

The Boy With No Blood

The next time it gets bad, just put me down.

Are Any of Us Even Learning?

Rumor has it that some kid at second-lunch just set a fire in the bathroom.

Peanut Butter Banana Sandwich

kissing boys / and / hitting on Elvis

Grandpa Speaks Greek

I hope he can read it.

You May Be Entitled

Call Bird & Frank TODAY at 1-800-BNF-4YOU for a free consultation and get back the dominance you deserve!

How to ███████ Blackout ████

1. Choose...anything. All that matters is...your source...to manipulate

Ode To My Cicada Homies (3301)

C to the I to the C-A-D-A

Anticipatory Grief

But the...vision flickers forward six months and you bury your father with a round, protruding belly.

Etiquette

I’m asked every night to defuse / a time bomb,

Threes a crowd

I didn’t utter the words “I love you” again in a romantic context for more than two years...

Chump Change

He means my Ralph Lauren Polo, of which I have four, and my mother bought it for me last Christmas. I wore it tonight because it’s the tightest shirt I own. I tell him my pimp bought it. He can’t tell if I’m joking.

Holding Hands For A Corporate Team-Building Exercise With Someone I’ve Never Spoken To Before

after Mekeila

Does Your Birth Order Effect Your Personality?

For those who question my credentials, I am, in fact, one of those maddening middle children.

Narcissus at the Water Dish

The eternity of that day slipped past me, like every other, and I ticked out the moments with the patience that only comes to one long accustomed to waiting.

My City Beats Your City Every Day

Gary’s a city, too, and all due respect to the city of Gary and its residents, but Gary thanks God for my city.

Bullshit

I’m not exactly a courteous person.

3 nDada Poems

A visual poetry triptych

Something Walking Miraculous

A hundred rows of variously shaped rabbits and birds in cages. Some have purple mohawks and curled talons.

Eat me (or take a bite)

(I disgust myself)

Your Freedom, an Attempt

There was one issue, and it was that you were completely normal.  So Levi Hampton had to improvise.

Tragedy among the Peaches

I no longer understand the language of birds,

Milestone

Got it all at Goodwill.

Fish

poetry and fish / have certain things / in common

Snakes and Stars

They approached from opposite ends trying to find the best entrance into the labyrinth of holes and passages. They nodded to each other, and both stuck their poles in to the rock pile from separate ends. They were immediately greeted by the insidious hiss of a rattlesnake.

If Cerberus Was A Bitch

Good girl!

Warzone

CW: Graphic Violence

Even Better

but not with words, please, no.

Thirty Minutes, Tops

Oh, I know what you’re up to. I might not know all the “unfinished business” rules (not that your lot ever bothered to tell anybody, lazy sods) but I’m in charge of my business and I’m saying that I’m not done. I shan’t be intimidated. That hag needs to be taught a lesson and that lesson is me.

Walt,

“One touch of your hand to mine O boy” — “Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night,” Walt Whitman

HEIGHT / US

A body’s warmth is felt / most consciously as it wanes.

Hairy Mammalian Creatures

Everyone looked super comfortable in their clothes, super relaxed. By contrast, I felt like every stitch of my outfit was slightly off, everything about me rendered in minor key.

Generational Addictions

where images of naked / women lying enjoyment stick / like coagulants in blood

Crutches

After Nikki Giovanni - “Emotional falls always are/the worst/and there are no crutches/to swing back on”

Explaining the Rules to My Children

In Louisiana it’s illegal to send unsolicited pizzas

Life Savers

No one doubts that Charlie and I will grow up to be major fuck-ups.

Reading My Living Room Floor Like Tea Leaves

I’ll have to get down on my hands and knees to pick up / the multitudinous pieces...

Little Nothings Inside

The gate was a custom job. Two pieces, meeting at the middle, with the guys’ wife’s initials in scrollwork on either side. It took my brother weeks to make them.

Prayer for Transgender Summers

Oh Lord, July days are just like February now, / And the despair is endless -

Annihilation (2018)

I am the Shimmer / Crawling everywhere at once,

Wild and Unclean

You inhale the shoe’s sweaty-sour scent. It’s disgusting. Dirty. Dingy. Dusty.

坚持到底 Till The Very End

“They take, as men are wont to do, with zeal”—A. Van Jordan

The Violet Ladder to Heaven

I read the whole Bible after she dumped me: Old and New Testament. Why the Bible? It’s probably not most people’s first choice of break-up read. But she’d been going on a lot about God and angels lately, so it felt kind of like scrolling through her new boyfriend’s Instagram.

The Universe Shrinks to the Size of a Pinhead Eight Minutes Before the Opening Bell in the Faculty Break Room

I have a daughter. I have two children older than you.

After We Watch The Girl, There are Birds and Bones Flying Everywhere When Supervising Middle Schoolers at Lunchtime

Pigeon is dead.

Our Generous Benefits Include Mental Health Interventions

I took one step to the right, but she took one step to the left, her left, my right, and there we were again, and we laughed a little, yes we did, a little quiet laugh: how silly are we.

BREAKING: one man dead from Bikini Kill crowd, no one cares

if i remove both ankles, then i have no weakness.

Much Obliged

On Tuesday I had to drag the garbage can back to its little pen myself, but the trick repeated itself that Friday, my not being able to break away from my keyboard until after one, when I’d finished my list of recommended Roto-league pick-ups for the following week (Buy: Juan Soto. No shit.)

The Night I Met Reincarnated Andy Warhol at Bonnie’s Bar & Grill in Fairview Park, Ohio

Weirdly, he skipped the soup

Friday Supper

[A]ll it takes is a moment to go south when my twin sister Darla brings home Furlong Dong...

Strident Opinion Based on Nothing

For a bunion?

The Crocodile Comes for Everyone

What I do remember is two grandfathers, 26 years apart.

HEAVEN’S BEST AND FINEST NOTES APP POETRY

Truth be told, I’m a liar. That’s a lie. Or a truth. I don’t know.

kind of man

I’m all alone on the Internet.

The B-52s Sing "Red Lobster" Before I Die

Regular sex wasn’t worth all this bullshit.

you are not my x

I do not care for your titular ploys.

En Route 301 to Bowling Green, Virginia

The road sweeps past

So Why Do You Want to Be A Writer

Your characters, they just kind of drift around. The world has no greater meaning for them. They just experience the mundane level of everyday activities. Something happens. Then something else happens. Then it’s over. The End.

stars too

From the chapbook *Poems of Color*

euphemism february

From the chapbook *Poems of Color*

The Curse of Curiosity

after WALL-E

you dont wanna know where i found this song

so when my buddy comes in he just about knocks the door off its hinges—i know because i saw the hinges crying about it later—and he says to me that i gotta go set up the record player for a forty-five.

Sex Ed

A Poem

Eight-Year-Old Self Writes A Story

Good stories should have the things you like in them: the glittery, jewel-toned things otherwise unattainable.

A Hand In The Clouds

Arthur worked this job. It was a job that he didn’t understand. It was a job that nobody understood. It was a job that required him to drive to these towns and villages and neighborhoods and look at the trees.

I Wish I Was Blue Moon

I wish I could know that warmth

Ode to the World’s Largest Honky Tonk

A feeling of non-existence:

It's a Yes or No Question

You’re not a complainer, are you?

Maybe what stays with us is—

that sound of hope

For Erica, Who Makes the Flowers Grow

We were young when we all met, intrepid seven year olds evicted from air-conditioned houses by distracted parents, left to fend for ourselves in the sunbaked streets of suburbia.

Mantra

enjoy the small things

Backroads

A more leisurely pace / where one can plot / future day trips.

Jason

Jason squats at the edge of the roof, his hands clasped in his lap, his feet the only parts of his body touching anything solid.

ouroboros train

The conductor says, when will I sleep, on the ouroboros train?

Hyacinthus’ Final Meditation

Enjoy your ascension

Multiverse Melissa

From "A Body in Motion"

That Sinking Feeling

The catering business didn’t afford me an extravagant stay in a sunken utopia. I wouldn’t stop in Atlantis. I’d have to sink much deeper.

Queens Remix

Is it a crime?

Never Meet Your Heroes

I was a bit iffy

Self-Awareness

I’ve recently taken to writing down my thoughts

The New York Times’s New “Thirty Six Questions that Lead to Love”

Are we in love yet?

Acoustic Cover

We started the band when we first heard Dan play an acoustic cover of Smells Like Teen Spirit, and he played so good, I almost cried, the same punk vibe, but less noise, less drama.

a million gods would kill for this job

& the world rushed into existence

Modern Poetry

The moon.

The End of the Line

It’s to keep you safe, Miss Shayna says.

Late One Night

I rolled out of bed, slowly / Crawled across a potato / chip ridden carpet,

The Pig Died

Who would say this?

Like a Giraffe

“Oh, oh! I see, my dear,”

Reference Call

I step out of my office into the dirty-white hallway beneath the coffin lid of fluorescent lights to take the call.

Mice

Somebody rapped on my door around 2AM.

Signs From Above

BE SMART / DRIVE SLOW

Bramble Visitor's Guide

The Bramble Prowlers (Go Prowlers!)

Go Prowlers!

Get ‘em! Get ‘em! Kill ‘em! Get ‘em! Kill ‘em

Violin

Inside me is a good violinist

When I Retire

When my old friends visit, / we will have nothing to talk about.

Before You Know It

The leaves fall like some personal ‘fuck you’ from the cosmos.

MY REFLECTION HAS BEEN TRICKY LATELY

(After X by Davey Davis) CW: anti-trans violence, suicide, disordered eating, and medical cissexism

POEM IN WHICH I READ TRANS

CW: anti-trans violence

The Big Stink

the city / smells like / meat going bad

Billy

his name / was Billy –

So What Is It That You Do?

“I clean up.”

Watch Me Grow Strong and Blind,

after Esperalia, d. J. Kalina, 1983

The Obvious Answer

after Road, dir. M. Kijowicz, 1971

Exact Measurements

after Re- The God of Sun, dir. H. Ryszka, 1970

Silent as the Grave

How do we resist? / Fire and joy.

i didn’t see it but it was there

i saw the bedroom once mine carved into a master,

happy dead dad day to all who celebrate 🎉

& i thought

Leviathan

Narrowing my eyes in the direction of elsewhere, I said: “It’s quite grim, this worldview of yours.”

Highly premenstrual thoughtpennies

I’m pretty sure the whole human race is choking on me like a fishbone.

A Portrait of Steve-O's Steve-O Tattoo as the Picture of Dorian Gray

The more I stare at his image on the TV screen, the less he looks like a forty-eight-year-old.

trans girl stuff playlist, 3.7k likes, "so not all of it is trans femme but it's a playlist i listen to when i'm dysphoric"

A Music Collage

Your Friend's Disappearance, As Observed By The Owl

Will Caroline get in a truck too?

The World Lost Out

The world can be so randomly cold and heartless.

Hold On

I'm always a minute too late to the punchline, the food is always cold when he gets to the table, his height changes the minute I etch it into the persimmon tree.

Navigator

Please input your new destination.

Urban Planning Clinic

The streets have low-down hucksters clamouring with metal,

That stupid song

I saw the text from his boyfriend when I used his phone for the ambulance

Monsters in the House

What did you get for your fifth birthday?

The Standard of Care

The germ of my idea spawned last Christmas when our Aunt Muriel, who lived in Florida and looked like a rotisserie chicken, gave my brother a set of marbles.

It's cold, can you

Stop. At the sidewalk? Shall we sit down here for a while,

True Scale

Then: a star—someone else’s sun—crashes through the gate of our Oort Cloud and rolls towards us, and it’s just like it was at the planetarium, on that elementary school field trip where I was introduced to the claustrophobia of watching a tiny yellow dot—

a bad gay guard

they keep saying i’m a bad guy

your kiss

hot on the heels of katy perry’s / late-2000s bisexual anthem

Custer's Last Stand

Even the bartenders, two burly guys with dark curly hair and mustaches—they look like brothers—seem bored stiff.

little victories

I lie to my boss about where I go after work.

Gratitude Party

And I know I know I know I keep thanking you.

That One Time I Had Reason to Panic

what do we do?

ReaderLove

A Goodreads story

leftover pickle brine

what else does it do?

All Alone In Furnished Room With Pee Stains On My Underwear

A Corso Cento

Jackman Redux

Shirt sleeves straining, tap shoes tapping and a smile so wide it swallows the world. He’s even handsome when hirsute!

A Gen X Story

One thing I’ll say about the pandemic, it made people ask this question like it mattered. Or maybe Vega had always been sincere.

can’t knock knock the hustle

Dear Jesus, thanks for the memories

Unbending

Life is good

Red Sky

The sky reddens.

drugs might help but so will therapy

i imagine my fury as if its mythology. / allow myself ugly. i thrill in the mud.

Watchtower

As I walk up our adjoining paths, I see Elena’s house is in darkness.

The Filthy Bass at 0:44 on "...goingtohell" by Miguel

brittle, brutal words / slowly losing volume

A Poem With a Painting And A Dead Poet, A Poem With a Hole

Sadness aches, hurts at the top of the throb / pulses at the bottom.

Saturn Devouring His PizzaChi

Opis, what is there to do

Bursting Bubbles and Other Myths

*Inspired by The Garden Of Earthly Delights by Bosch

smash and grab

waiting to return

On my third beer watching "The Decline of Western Civilization"

swords of Damocles hanging over us all

Even the scarred can dream on New Year's Eve

once mere debris - / now sweep the stars,

every time i sigh i can’t help but think i’m getting a little taste of what it's like to die

A poem

November

You are no longer a child.

First snow

turning to dust. A sheetless bed.

Dead or Alive

burying the / man / alive.

ELEGY FOR THE HOME I LEFT

Along the Mississippi we listened to jazz,

more follies and feathers

the tinkling of the ice dam is now cacophony

Waiting to Melt

After Dustin Pickering

Frost King

I don’t know what it was that drove them to lock us up inside—perhaps this had always been the plan.

How To Break Up With A Toxic Loved One: a handy guide to being civilized instead of honest

I’m growing as a person, learning a lot about myself and how my past experiences have impacted me. I’m reevaluating what’s worked for me and what hasn’t.

The Ice Pick That is Made of Ice

He knows as well as you or I that most ice picks (as these implements are known) have a handle which is made of wood but can also be made from plastic or rubber, and attached to this handle there is usually a pointy steel bar...

after we watched how the grinch stole christmas and you still didn’t bother to text me back

i want to break my bones / in snow boots.

The Years Without a Santa Claus

a decaying sestina, after Lawrence Schimel

when i think of jason bourne i think of christmas

After Elizabeth J. Wenger’s “when i think of quentin tarantino i think of revenge”

Sestina Written on the Way Home for Christmas

look: i just know / the exact ache in my ribs as Colin Firth eyes his lover across the plains / of France and the pain

Strangers

Sexual. Spatial. Temporal. I want to be anywhere, / anytime but this conversation. What did she think then?

Crimes We Commit in the Future

Privately, we worried. There’s no way to be sure what we would do, how far we could be pushed. It made us question ourselves, examine what desperation could make us do.

To Cure a Thing

After Jenny Qi’s “Two Cures"

Role Play Game

Never did bring that bastard down, / it’s still him against us— / even with three generations of apocalyptic / natives tinkering with the algorithm.

november 20

CW: Mental and Physical Health, Suicide, and Medical Transition

Fantaisie Impromptu

To steal time.

Delayed Gratification

Not counting those dissolved in hot chocolate or melted into rice krispie treats, I consume about five marshmallows total a year.  Always toasted on a campfire.

I Am That Meme

The distracted boyfriend is the story / of lifelong discontent / of what-ifs

Forest for the Trees

I did ask her about the antlers, once, after getting high before bed.

The Request

The librarian folded his arms and frowned. “Are you sure you want to?”

You’re Not Alone If You Have Demons

Her ex-boyfriend had claimed to be a vampire, and that was about thirty percent believable. He bit a lot, but he also loved the beach, and what kind of vampire likes the fucking beach?

If It's So Easy To Drive Out Snakes, Where's My Sainthood?

How lucky are we, you beam at him. A flash of clarity: everything beautiful you see here, you made yourself. He’s just the mirror. All the goodness he shows you is only your own, refracted. Quickly, you chew this thought and swallow it.

Wild Hearses

wheel around to wait / for the timorous who / need to be nudged...

Hospital

in the hall. How could he / just shrug, unembarrassed?

Philipe, pronounced the French way

I need quiet time, Mum said. And ‘it’ has a name, she added.

The Domovoi

What about this excited her, made her squeeze his hand and turn red all over?

Road Rage

How long before he’s hooked up in the ER?

Three Root Canals

For my third root canal, I came unprepared. No Advil, no beseeching any Gods who seemed unwilling to come to the phone right now. I came in alone, raw, pure of heart, strong of tooth and weak of nerve.

SILVER FILLINGS

Toga parties are life jackets for kids with rich parents.

Review: Burden of Joy (by Lexi Kent-Monning)

Kent-Monning has the rare gift of transmitting raw, bodily experience to her reader.

Extra Metamorphosis

Asher told his first boyfriend he'd discovered a writer named Franz Kafka who'd written a book where a guy wakes up to discover he has been transformed into a large and mostly immobile bug.

Monday Afternoon

He’s a blackjack dealer / at a Niagara Falls casino.

Evening Stroll

It’s a tough place to be

The Cobra

The things he said were, perhaps, a bit too complex for us at 14. But I can vividly remember the moment I finally understood precisely what he meant.

GIRLS

YOU’RE NOT A GIRL!

Such a Tincture

Fill my blood with Belladonna and Hearts ease–until there / is nothing left of you. May it slip into my bones as I lay

Pearls

“Not everybody likes to see where the product comes from.”

The Intruder

They aren’t loser bachelorettes. I’m the only loser here.

Dear Poet

Warm regards,

Violin exposure

We don’t say that we regret agreeing to violin, oboe, saxophone lessons. We pretend this is the only place we could possibly want to be.

Rural Town Wellness Check

You stare at him. One beat passes. Two. This cannot be happening.

Ten Tips to Have Fun in Miami

And remember… what happens in Miami, stays in Miami!

The Grass is Half Full

enjoying the result of your efforts.

Fixing What is Broken and Breaking What is Fixed

Everything changes.

Death Works at Trader Joe's

A triptych of poetry and prose

Noon

i don’t think it’s all fences, / one says.

Rosie and Boris

I could write a book on experiences of Rosie’s power, but here I’ll just share a few choice examples, and then I’ll share my favorite experience with her.

Cocksplatt1's Monologue

Creator give. Eat, bow. Live, life. Life gah. Creator drown bow neighbour, bow deesh.

Shakespeare’s Cumslut 🥵😏

To 🅱️ or not to 🅱️

Defending the Teenage Love Poem

But like any other teenager, the universe was quick to show me the error in my ways. It happened quickly and easily on a night that shocked itself with intracloud lightning.

The Meg 14: Sinbad’s Voyage

(A)pparently no one remembers Jaws,

as in tool

& i don’t know that growl is the word for what i want. what i want / is a good poem, but it’s eluding me at the moment. what i want to know is / whether della was a lesbian in the books & why they cast ham the way they did

Tourists

You tend to keep up fake appearances before people you love – until, all at once, something strikes and you speak or shout like nobody is there. You might suppose this would be more insolent than anything else.

Three Poems on the Angel Gabriel

A poetry triptych

Tuesday is the New Monday.

I must ask you to bear with us while the changes settle into place, I appreciate that this may take some time.

my father votes in favor of capital punishment

and it gives me hope

i realized i forgot to say i love you

didn’t know i could love you. if / words were meant to elaborate on

My Week of Seven Senses

All we humans have “conditions” to bear. Circumstances to survive. Though I’ll grant you, mine may be one of the weirdest.

Dickless

I want to point out trans men exist.

JOEY vs. THE GOUT KEBAB

Joey palmed the glass to kill the neon glare and peered in. Men in white lab coats sliced strips of meat from the rotating elephant’s leg. Customers fumbled with clipboards, using string-bound pencils to complete their paperwork.

Perspective, or a Brilliant Idea for an Award-Winning Piece of Short Fiction

Each command+shift keystroke combo provoked a gauntlet of urgent software updates, pinwheeling beachballs, and prompt boxes for long forgotten passwords.

Chicxulub

So if you looked up / and saw flames painting the sky, / what would you think?

Is it still Dollar Pizza if it’s a Dollar Fifty?

On Facebook people are even angrier and it’s more real, because if you’re on Facebook in 2022 you don’t care what people think of you.

Deadlines

He couldn’t come up with something to say every time he ran into this guy. People expect too much when they put you on the spot and force you to think of something. It’s not that easy to come up with clever dialogue.

The Truth Stings

she has to ask it again as I lean in closer / “Do you ever have doubt?”

Guess I'm A Paper Nautilus Now

This is my chance at freedom. That word is euphoric, I can't help but smile feeling the shapes into which it presses my mouth. That's why today has to be the day.

My doll watched

As we slipped off their dresses and dipped them one-by-one into their pool, Barbie stared, unchanged, and I thought of when I first unboxed her, newly four, half a shelf of dolls beside the built-in closet.

The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down

I wanted once before to honk my horn against the swastika that he’d drawn on the poster board he got from the Dollar General, but I had the horn’s fuse pulled as a wild experiment in radical pacifism.

Beef Case

The future is a vast and scary place, the recording says. Dead ends, dead dreams, destitution. Only if you’ve been pushing yourself hard enough do you have a chance. You have ten minutes of break. Step it up.

The new clock

and my heart is a crocodile mimicking death. I seek God in a temple

Genesis

no rib bones please!

Malus

A Flash Fiction Trio

Space Potato

Everything I think, everything I am is foreign.

It Was Too Soon To Thank God

It was like that old saying I had once heard: “Those who are about to die become Gods.”

The Delights of Eating on the Job

And if you’re feeling extra bold, you can try to eat the food.

My Summer of Rubber Dust

The Machine didn’t work well, not by a long shot. But, in the end, it worked just enough.

My Father, the Comedian

Do you think your mom would have been proud? He asked.

Ladies' night is in retrograde

I say to myself in the mirror—just to see

In 2055 the water will be two feet deeper around Manhattan

I pay for my tacos. She pays for something she didn’t ask for.

The Fable of Darwin and the Baby Bunny

Life isn’t fair.

The Tide King

After getting fired for colliding with a car turning right, Tyler went to the seediest bar he knew to console himself with filth and grime and terrible beer. He got all this plus some kind words from his tenth-grade health teacher, who was there sipping lagers.

Dreamhouse

Hell, it was her idea to bring Signature Ken™ to life in the first place. She wanted a partner. Someone who was as driven as she was, when she realized the market was there for the taking, all these girls with dreams and aspirations, with mothers cheerleading Hell yeah!

trans* (a librarian's definition)

truncation is particularly useful when a search term is recognized to have several endings, all of which represent the same or similar ideas.

While Waiting to Clear Customs at BUD International Airport

And if you are not resurrected, what then?

Flattening Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting Curve

And now, days later, as I field my own self-initiated questions with no ready answers, I make a promise to myself to make my memories matter. To write.

Jesus is in her bedroom

The girl wonders, not for the first time, whether she should tell Nonna about Him.

Teaching Anthony Bourdain to Eat Crawfish

a Poem

Saturday, 2018

THE BAYOU WHICH ISN’T VERY FULL RIGHT NOW / TRICKLING PAST REEKING LIKE GALVESTON WATER

This is where I'd end it

“This sucks,” I yell, and what I mean by “this” is everything.

Grandparent’s Day

Lucy might call it ironic, except, she doesn’t have a solid grasp on that term.

Atomic Pink Summer

We must strike while the iron is hot pink!

A Monstrous Inadequacy

But the brain is not dead. It quivers and thumps as if it contains a beating heart.

The Sacred Breath of God

These days I’m always obeying the various voices in my ears.

Sand Dollar

my mother cracks it open to show me the little doves inside

Kübler-Ross Knuckle Tattoo

Sure we sink into the depression, the low tide surging to riptide and pulling us out and away with the poets. But it has to be deeper than that.

Mine

Coming home. A dog sometimes. Desire. Living.

CRIPPLING SELF DOUBT

A recipe for anxious thought

A Flame of Bones

An epic stew – modern outdoor cuisine for today’s working warlord

eros

it’s two am and we’ve decided / we might be God. we’ve decided

Red Light/Green Light

I think I’m straight, but I play rugby, so I must be at least bisexual, right? So…orange?

The Ice Cream Flavor Paradox

I know I always feel good in that identity, but what if I want to dress sexier for a night out with friends? Or more formal for an interview? What if I’m just in the mood for something different?

Safe

I don’t know. He never told or showed anyone. Not Grandma, not Dad, definitely not me.

Holtz Children's Hospital, 2022

I still think it’s worth a shot. I’ll think of / tulips, of Plath.

Aubade with frat flu

There’s another version of this in which we / wake up in this beautiful light, follow / songbirds to class.

2AM Sonnet About Anne Marie Oomen as God

I hold a shovel, ask if this is real, / like essays. She says sure.

Running Against the Wind: Disabled Masculinity and the Vicious Cycle of Sport

I’ve been looking at myself in the mirror above the sink.

Get In Losers, We’re Cosplaying as Christine McVie in 1979 All Summer

I’m wearing a denim dress and big aviator sunglasses like Christine in one of the Tusk recording sessions outtake videos.

inside you there are two wolves

yes, you're supposed to lean back on the glasscold mirror, covering one eye with hydrantorange hair so flatironed and stinking of sulfur.

How I Became the God of Crows

It would have been inconsequential if it’d happened to anyone else, except it happened to me, and I don’t lose things.

Met God in the Backseat of a Ford Fiesta Behind a Dumpster

God’s always watching.

Dreamscapes with Elvis

Last night Elvis / was again in my mother's dream.

It Isn’t Going to be a Bedroom Time Machine

For Ellie. You will find it. You will, you will, you will.

butter Flies

Flies know death. The cold carcass of the body a grand hiding place from the seasons.

Three Sleeping Steeples

A Prose Poetry Triptych

WHAT LOVE MEANS TO ME

CW: implied homo/transphobia, shitty parenting, suicidal ideation

Arrangements

The loss of a parent is one of life’s most unforgiving tricks. But alas, your mother’s higher power has a plan. He gave your mother a lifetime with the most precious gift there is and He removed your mother from this Earth at precisely her destined moment.

The Week After I Graduated in No Specific Order

I’m not picky.

Humans Remain

I care for the crematorium inside me. The British Museum drains 6,000 carnages Female dancer figure (hula position?) made of wood, pearl-shell, teeth (human?), hair.

19 Ways of Crossing the Street After the Old Guy In the Sedan Jerks to a Last-Minute Stop in the Vons Parking Lot Crosswalk and Motions for You to Pick Up the Pace, Can’t You See He Didn’t Want to Stop For You in the First Place, Lady?

Imagining a possible legitimate reason for his impatience

Pigeon wearing meth-filled backpack busted at B.C. prison

source: https://globalnews.ca/news/9393581/pigeon-backpack-meth-bc-prison-grounds/

Please Don’t Tell Mom!

Oh, man. Your brother’s gonna die.

Crybaby Ferris Sucks

Baby kept costing us matches, throwing punches at opponents that missed and caught me right in the mush, tripping and accidentally hitting me with his big splash, that kind of stuff.

My Rug

If my rug were a house it would have good bones, right?

Theatrics

I rip my mask off. Distressed, you might call my expression, if you weren’t so fucking focused on checking your goddamn phone, I am having a moment here. A figure joins me on stage. It’s just me with a megaphone, I didn’t really have time to hire someone new.

He’s Afraid of all the Happiness

He shrieks that I’m hiding fun from him because I know where he is and I won’t pretend otherwise, and groans to himself he needs to do a better job hiding—he’s so bad at it.

Melrose

I signed a one-year lease fifteen years ago, / but 3,497 auditions later, I’m still here.

Demi Moore Sighting in Brentwood

for Nicole Brown Simpson, murdered June 12, 1994

Dorothy Parker at the Algonquin

Suitors stare across the bar, singing sonnets with their eyes, as if praying for one last deadly line.

Back to Motherland, That’s Some Otherland

Let’s go back to once upon a time. Before the clarity, before the connection, before the sukoon. Let me start with the disparity of hope and despair, the heartbreak and the trauma.

The Red Ring

We listened to the words of that stout man, feeling lost with context of time and space.

to avoid responsibility, i blame my father for everything

instead, i wander through / these desolate streets / broken homes with broken sinks / in search of someone

Hestia is Sick of Your Shit

And it’s not that she would mind except for the fact that she’s a goddess, and that heat—which she had so lovingly doted on, coaxing it from the cold stone hearth for thousands of years—doesn’t seem to be enough these days.

Good Hair Day

Last month, I bought a / blow dryer and a round brush.

How to be a daughter

add glitters, / add sprinkles, / add prayers,

Bad Habitus

Dad had developed a taste for tobacco by the time he was 14. It would be a stolid companion throughout his life. As a child, I thought his ability to hold entire conversations with a lit roll-up in his mouth was a kind of superpower.

(IF IT'S NOT LOVE) THE BOMB WILL BRING US TOGETHER

I knew I should have said something then, something to the effect of: I’m sorry. He had not wanted to go to the party, let alone watch the game. Earlier that day lying in bed he had listed reasons why it was a bad idea...

Small Town as The Palimpsest That I Keep Trying to Reset Back to Original Childhood Happiness

Would we have been friends in a different town? / This town is all I have of you now.

Tucker Leighty-Phillips Discusses "Maybe This is What I Deserve"

TLP: Even when you’re critiquing something, you have to have an element of hope. A yearning for something better being out there, and possible.

Ten Reasons

She falls in and out of sleep, flips between episodes of dreams. Her mother’s screaming from inside a flooded urn, “Let me out of here!” Kitty’s playing Toss the Onion Ring, Mona’s mouth as target.

Get out of My Head

Have you ever seen a jar of mayo smash on the ground?

6075 W. Fulton St

And when I got home I remembered that the door was unlocked not politically but because the lock had been broken since my tenure there had started. Just like the oven and microwave.

The Horrible Initiative

Beside the board stands a young man, presumably Mr. P P-G. On his smooth face, a series of feel-your-pain frowns and so-encouraging smiles alternate as appropriate.

post-utero instructions

After “Out utero” recorded by Manuel Guerrero and hosted by Cities and Memory

heaven-spent

to all but the unheard, who recognize / this sort of shouting from the howl

hey, that rhymes

after “Youth” by Glass Animals

Why My Dissertation is Late

I tried copying someone else’s dissertation, just to feel the keys moving under my fingertips...I also watched 19 Hamlet movies for inspiration (see YouTube links), but all I learned is that Kenneth Branagh looks weird with a mustache.

Postcolonial Takeout Discourse

Exhibit A: the deep-fried Twinkie. / Ex. B: the deep-fried pizza. Novelties / that you might have at the fair once / a year.

Beekeeping Age

Spite has gotten me further in life than / anything else. Is that not a type of / happiness? I live a happier life once I've / had revenge.

The Couple in 5F

It is nice to know my neighbors though, even just a little bit. Knowing your neighbors, even just a little bit, makes NYC apartment living less like living in a big empty box with whispers of occupancy and more like living in a place teeming brimming spinning simmering with people.

Ariel

I don't even hesitate. From the other side of the cross-legged circle, she smiles at me.

Accumulations

I'm gonna get this bad boy stuffed and hung above my toilet so he can forever look down into water. Just the way God intended.

kylie jenner / gun baby poem

the rich woman in my head gets to be appalled at these things and with baby-like curiosity she feels the chill of the steering wheel under her hands. i’ve been thinking as well about giving birth to an assault rifle or rather i’ve been thinking it’s too on the nose.

The Feeding of Strays

And now they are gone. No more 3 AM meowing, no more silly old ladies and their stinking food going pstpsptpstp any more.

Your Love

when I feel the added pleasure / is worth the price.

Becoming Linda

Ties that Linda’s beauty hid well. Locked away tight in the pit of her perfectly flat stomach. Eyes set like topaz jewels masking the truth. No one with skin like bronze had troubles. No, not Linda.

Ask me about my Twins

We wanted a nice garden. There were schools to think about – our oldest would be starting the next year, and the baby would be going to nursery soon – she was a toddler by then but would still be called baby for some time yet.

Last Creature on Earth

It never really dies, / he tells me. / Though it was a jellyfish

liar, liar

Once we’ve locked ourselves into the hallway bathroom—which is ridiculously nice for a frat house, what the hell—I take one look at the group and decide that our only solution is to lie our way out.

Please Now Submit an Author Photo, .JPG Preferred

There’s no one here to take an unguarded photo of me biting on a hangnail while staring at the screen working out a better word for ‘broken.’

Wikipedia Speed Runs

Instructions: Find a path from the beginning article to the ending article using only article links.

Only the Good (Guinea Pigs) Die Young

That gruesome adolescent heartbreak you go through again and again and again and then evolves into real heartbreak, the kind you can’t just shrug off as kid feelings. It starts here.

Seven

It's that country near the bottom of the Earth, the one that only comes up in the news when we owe someone else billions or when people find out our president's son is a drag queen which is genuinely one of our greatest and only sources of pride.

when the house is quiet, when your mind wanders, when your mind whispers

loved not be loved not be loved

How to Grow a Nice Girl / On Nursery Rhymes, Suffrage, Spice, and Everything (Not) Nice / That’s What Memory is Made Of

“Why can’t a nice-looking girl like you act nice,” the principal asked.

Catching Smoke

A couple of cards, a 4 and a King, lay on the green felt in front of you. You clutch a cup of coffee with your left hand. There’s a stack of casino chips in your right. You're shuffling the chips over and over.

A Poetry Found in the Chest of A Dead Soldier

If I keep your poetry, / And I'm killed, / Will I be buried with it?

Questions after you said I died a million times in you

Who sings honeyed dirges for the dead while their warm hands make love with someone else’s warm hands?

In it

Sorrow a monotonous tune, like the weeping of this lonesome cunt. I cry because I am two hours behind his time zone always, and maybe that means I am also two hours behind grieving us always.

Litterbug

Sea otters shivering, succumbing to the cold without the properties of their insulating fur, lifeless paws slipping from each other’s grasp. Dolphins scattered, bursting like smooth grey fireworks away from the foul stench that permeated the water.

Call It What It Is

at fifteen the intake nurse clacked her nails until / social phobia, ED-NOS appeared beside diagnosis

Maybe a Butterfly Will Sit on Us

But every day we also hoped something would change, that our Mortuary House would have dainty laced curtains and a round table in the center draped in white table cloth.

Were-Teen Dreams

What if...?

Goldfish

Living is like a turtle shell growing around a plastic bag

spring

in an ancestral language i never learnt

Draft 1/Draft 5

I write creative nonfiction, and that means that I lay in your arms and think about how I would describe it, our bodies next to each other in the dark while it storms outside, how I ask you to leave the fan off so we can hear it.

Doctor Storm

I am here because I can’t sleep when it’s dark, / maybe in an hour I will be tired.

Exposition

I survived a knife between my ribs, / strings cutting into sponge-berry flesh, / blooming rose wound around my wrists.

How to Clean Filters: An instruction manual

You heard it’s best to step away from it for a while. You decide to let the story rest for a few days/weeks/months. It sounds like you deserve a break, anyway; you watch as your computer switches off.

Eco Punk

Hearing about another extinct species, I do a line of hope

A response to, in conversation with, with regards to, The Entire [REDACTEDRED] of [REDAC TE DRE DACTE]

Long spidery clockwork orange lashes and you hate to be shushed like that by your mum or other grown-ups or anyone. And you will still not know what sex is for years, years after you did it even.

My Neighbor Likes to Kill Himself with Guns

CW: Mentions of Suicide

to the ends of the earth

i will take your hand. / smooth my thumb over the callouses / liver-spotted, amber nails cracked from worried teeth

My Life Has a Purpose, My Life Has a Plan

Now he’s LA and airplanes and travels a lot. In high school Dane was “I don’t want anyone to know we’re related if you talk about church stuff” and “you can’t say that here.”

Dinner for One: An Internal Monologue

I cannot fathom sitting alone in a restaurant with a horde of costumed men breathing down my neck, pitying the lone eater, wondering how fast I will empty the table for a group of noisy jobless rich brats who would order five times more and tip a little too generously.

elegy for the walkable city

where do we go, where do we belong

It Girl Corpse: Or, I Cut up the National Enquirer and Turned It Into Shitty Poetry

Love At First Like / FIND TRUE LOVE / talk about sex

To the Tampon

men aren’t supposed to bleed.

Today, We Are Making Gazpacho

There is almost no reason to make gazpacho at any other time of the year. Try to make this with winter grocery store tomatoes and it’ll be like drinking a Michelob Ultra instead of an actual beer.

Dynamic Preparation

I bring...

The Dog Days of Living

Just before midnight, my cousin, her owner, is asleep at a hotel in Florida that does not allow dogs, but is so luxurious that she would leave Holly in New Jersey under the care of a 21 year old.

A Thief in the Caucasus

Prometheus hadn’t seen a son so close in eons. He spoke words from Armenia, a tongue which demanded much from the throat.

Salt water to carving.

delicious / on sunday / afternoons.

Spinning

2am toilet bowls: / the stars whipping / cartwheels off;

Spineless

I swam. I dove under, let go of the float and remembered my body. I’ve been obsessed with invertebrates and wanted to be spineless. I came back to the surface and swam to the concrete retaining wall at the edge of the lake to pull myself out of the water.

Support Group for Miracle Survivors

There were sympathetic yawns; everyone had heard all this before.

Surviving the Forest

Perhaps it is my subconscious telling me to die in the pines and the snow, better than to die alone in the root cellar, where tossed-out tools are ornaments that shine and sing.

Gun Circus at the Civic Center

Oh, fuck, will there be guns!

At Least Crows Plot Their Recklessness

within me, maybe, when mother asked where did this all start?

Have You Ever Been Asked To Leave An Airport Chili’s?

Tell me where to go, what to do / when I get there. Just bring me / best practice, nothing that will blur

I'm Sorry We're Getting Married

I love you, Harry. And I’m excited that we can be married for most of our lives. What does that mean, though, when we can already love each other for most of our lives whether the government is involved or not.

my sticky sweet(s)

In the spaces between the two of you, I snuggle up for comfort.

Show Me the S on Your Chest

when every night terror wakes / and feeds on the ice / unchecked in your veins

The Sky is Calling

Military or / off-world / secret, perhaps.

Did Being Neurodivergent Mean I Hated Boybands and Mondays?

‘I’m a freak, I'm a weirdo, what the hell am I doing here, I don’t belong here’ -Creep, Radiohead 1992

Film School Planet

The phantom trapped inside appeared before the critic on his couch and offered him the customary three wishes.

Richard Zenith

I’d stolen it accidentally when I lived across from LA City College from in front of an ostentatious antiques store two blocks from my studio, a dingy shop I supposed was in foreclosure but was actually holding an outdoor sale.

imperfect personification

the old dental assistant asks if i want dentures before thirty

Letter to a Young Poet

after Megan Fernandes

Rangoon

“I know those guys,” my father would say. “They’re just a glorified referral service.”

The Sara Chain Letter

A bunch of text, on a forum post or in an email, telling the reader they had four minutes to send the letter to ten people or else they would drop dead in a week. And other multitudinous variations.

ALTERNATIVE TIMELINES/DEATH SPIRAL

All miracles can be explained through standard deviation.

WE THOUGHT IT WAS OUR ABILITY TO LOVE THAT MADE US HUMAN, BUT IT TURNS OUT IT WAS ACTUALLY OUR ABILITY TO SELECT EACH IMAGE CONTAINING A BOAT

Is there a difference between sonar and bad vibes?

My Golden Retriever is an Asshole

Chester was more of a Nietzsche dog, believing hope is for losers.

Casualties of War

For the rest of his life, he’ll tell people this was the first Super Bowl he remembers.

Broken Bricks

A red brick wall, the ground along it lined / with chips of brick; how came they in those piles?

piece by piece we shut it down but I have not forgotten.

I have no idea how / I should be taking those words now,

Clicky-Thing: a modern review of the Carhartt Relaxed Fit Washed Duck Sherpa-Lined Utility Jacket with a 2 Warmer Rating

Anyway, I decided that this was the year I’d get a proper winter jacket again.

Blood

The dog knows to curl up behind a chair or slip under the bed. But the man and the bag fill the space between the dog and chair.

JOHN CENA IS BAD AT HAIKUS

you can't see me

I WANT TO KNOW THE CHICKEN’S NAME

I also want to ask if it knows / what a road is. If it ever actually / knows where it’s going. Or why

8 Ways to Get Out of Debt Fast

The trick is to pick articles that are destined for spammy blogs. They don’t care about quality and they usually come with a list of keywords that need to be stuffed into 250 words of content.

Neoliberal Prayer #1: Bedtime Prayer

Dear Lord, / I ask not for / riches or wealth,

Neoliberal Prayer #3: Prayer to Saint Alexa

ALEXA! CONTINUE RECORDING!

Your Novel And You

CW: animal death, cannibalism, violent imagery

When Are You Free

The lake’s schedule was more fluid, / naturally, but we squeezed in the time,

We read to know we are not alone,

But I told this car full of friends this truth I’d never even spoken to myself.

It Started with a Feeling, and Now My Boyfriend and I are Sitting in a Clinic for a Pre-Conception Consultation, and I Can’t Stop Worrying About My Unknown Future

The doctor says I won’t have many changes since I’ve been on hormones for so long, but still—

America's #1 News Source

Uhhh anyone else see this article?

The Jewel on Main

It wasn't your liver, though we had bets whose was worse. The odds always in favour that you’d never go first. It wasn't your heart though it's been broken many times. And it wasn’t your sugar from drinking outside the lines.

Hungry Ghosts

This year a group of teenagers has joined in the occasion, a mix of locals and foreigners. They parade amongst the younger children wearing lurid rubber masks: lolling tongues and murderous grins.

An Eighty-Year Joke

And there's so little time to / even consider it with all of the / living we need to take care of.

Afterparty

I just wanted to tell you that the kind stranger who held my hair back at the end of the night got quite a mouthful about how lovely I think you are.

Hometown Tour

And in the daydream, he smiles, he smiles big and a lot, he's happy, I can't believe how happy, over such small things, and he says, that's cool, oh that's cool too, oh that's so cool...

When Meteorologists are Seers Every Cloud is an Omen

I think it's more likely I'll scoop up stones & save them in my shoes

Sugar: a Study in Noir

after Bobby Darin's 'Mack the Knife' & Nina Simone's 'Pirate Jenny'

Birds

There were many things that I might have said, that I would have liked to have said …

Sunset Point

She climbed onto the back of one, shouting something about becoming a “spring break legend.”

Operating Instructions

the honesty of that gives me / a peach pit in my stomach / a teardrop in / my throat

There's Nazis In Them There Fredonian Hills

The first thing that Selma saw in her Art and Architecture classroom was a shakily drawn peace sign on the blackboard. “Peace for Fredonia,” it read, just as shakily, underneath.

MILES SHOWED ME HIS TRUMPET

Miles Davis lived around the block from me / deep in the upper west side of Manhattan island.

Sweet Paradise

I’ve never felt so emotionally close to an ice-cream. This remarkable feat from a loaded cone demanded my respect. Reaching out, my finger touched the melting solution that had crossed its great divide.

Meet & Greet with Zaphod Beeblebrox

seven galaxies over —they are interstellar / radio savvy, in the very least. And yeah, / they’ve been in contact for about two years,

Travel Tip #3: Antarctica & Growth

Not just a memory, but / an invisible & teeming / with life magnetic field,

The Sea Cannot Turn to Stone

CW: Sexual Violence

Eye See You

When the mailman came pedaling by on his 3-wheel cargo bike, Wilhelmina poked her head out of the dormer window, and in her cheeriest sing-song voice issued a hellooo-oo. When he looked up, she gave the queen’s wave.

Dad's Toe

Later, while I’m telling Jamie the story of how Dad chopped his toe off, I get two texts from Dad’s phone. The first one is an overexposed close-up of a pearl white bone surrounded by what looks like gray and white chicken flesh. The second text says: “This is my toe.”

When You're In Love With a Poet

Wind bristles my bones as I shiver through our vacant city.

Paper, Plastic, and Glue

Her parents discussed it. Cried. Discussed it again. Her mother said she’d like to read Jennifer at least once.

My mum sends all her texts as blocks

as if she’s speaking to you directly

Cry-baby

Have you ever held Death’s hand? I have. I have pulled it to my cheek and told it to slap. Stupid girl, brilliant bones. Feel it. Feel it!

Family Anatomy

“I always knew my son was too good for public school,” his mother would say at the dinner table. “He doesn’t need to squabble with the riffraff in California."

What if We Kiss in the North Brooklyn Industrial Business Zone?

We were trying to make our way back / To the subway before sunset.

Titivillus

No darker brew can flow / Than moonless thunder sting / Of rites which echo might.

When Peanut Butter is On the Line: A Study of Genetically Mutated Hamsters, Territoriality, and Bloodshed

Inspired by research conducted by the Georgia State University Neuroscience Institute

Taylor Swift Releases ‘Midnights (3am Edition)’ or, My Friend and I Watch *That* Episode of BoJack Horseman

I was dancing around to Fearless and / Glee when eyes were set on me. At nineteen,

Gothic Pixie Bipolar Bitch

I lounge over these Victorian banisters while old family / secrets burst through every hinge in the house.

OVERTURE: SOMEWHERE IN NEW JERSEY, 2009. IT’S A WEEKNIGHT IN AUGUST.

Your arms are sloppy around his veiny orange neck. They say the juice heads do it best, but he wouldn’t even pay for your funnel cake...

A Total Schenectady of the Heart.

My transparent invitations via pop songs shouted hoarse/ summarized my status as an ill-tuxedoed groom

you+me+everything.

All I want is you (and me and everything.)

This Version is Slapstick

The driver goes—YOU NEED MORE CHANGE!

I Don’t Make Promises Anymore

you say i’ll go first if you promise to save me if i fall.

Shaun or Sean or Shawn says you're a great friend, 2006

sunken as a memory in the ember sunset / in that small place subliminal space in your head

Elephant Sinking Into a Mud Pit

And for two more days the rescuers try to drag out / the grey giant with ropes — to no avail.

An Afternoon Wedding

The wedding planner skirts around him, out of the radius of his thrashing. She doesn’t have time to fight his hands away and explain that she’s not his bride.

Accident, Maryland

Here old ladies brush their teeth with Desitin. Men step on the toes of priests. Strangers elbow strangers, their arms swinging back-and-forth like bells in a grandfather clock.

Peer Pressure

I’m molding a mask for myself out of aluminum foil.

Sad Girls of Instagram

after "Song for Sad Girls" by Kim Addonizio

Shedding

The gentleman in the chair stood up, paid, and breezed by Avery on his way out. They shook their hair off their face and made their first eye contact with the barber.

FTM Stigmata in the Truck Stop Men's Room

A visual poem

Ars Poetica

it is more warm than fireside / eyes shining orange and soft, /

Sledgehammer

Doubtful the landlord knows you’re taking down walls.

Sucking Candy Demise

The man, not yet having nothing left to live for, agrees that the next such sucking candy he consumes will be the last;

The Revolution

“Cut it out. You and I both know you don’t have a revolutionary bone in your body, not to mention the fact that, as a lover, your lack of creativity is matched only by your lack of ambition.”

roadkill

It was so sad to see those large horseshoes / dangle. Dogs I’ve seen and cats I see most.

Windshield Wiper

My dog greets me at the door.

Thinking

Coconut curry and / Sticky rice / Have healed / Our wounds

"Every little boy needs a dog," barks your mother

That's odd, too. Your parents don't go out in winter. You pick up whatever they need.

Coming Clean

From EAST COAST BLUES via Bottlecap Press (2022)

Shopping malls and parking lots and all the places I knew I liked girls

The first time I was misgendered was at a Taco Bell in Crossgates Mall in upstate New York. Or rather, this is the first time I specifically remember being misgendered.

███come to earth ██████████

An erasure from “Welcome to Earth” by Sturgill Simpson (A Sailors Guide to Earth)

Brace ███ ██████ (████ A Little)

An erasure from “Brace For Impact (Live A Little)” by Sturgill Simpson (A Sailors Guide to Earth)

The Motor Oil (In Bloom)

A découpé poem after Sturgill Simpson’s A Sailor’s Guide to the Earth (2016)

a body of work

one by one, I unhooked joints and / rearranged them at my feet in the living room.

Give Me an Opinion

*i wasn’t sure how to form / an opinion, so i decided to / watch some YouTube videos / to see if they could show me how.

Dialogues with a Stray Cat

incidentally, I wonder if any animal could actually take residence on my patio once my sister sends her furniture over.

Captcha Carnival

Select all squares with empathy

Miranda Cosgrove (and Carly Shay)

You’re a little more into iCarly than your peers, for a lot longer than them, too. You find yourself in the iCarly fandom, reblogging posts at a rate that loses you followers.

Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz III

You recite his lyrics like they are a prayer, like it’s not a coincidence FOB has the same amount of letters as GOD.

Smoke

When I was a kid, one of my special interests was Old Hollywood. This was my parents’ fault for allowing me exposure to the genre.

Pointed

I never / had. Big sweaters, / bigger glasses, / a patriarch.

Madmartigan in the Mercedes

He was like a man but not quite. He was a fictional character that vanished from my view when I pressed “stop” or “eject.” In this way, he was better than a man.

Amy

The bourgeois adores the anti-bourgeois.

Monk

It was like I was faking an accent.

Bowie

Chaos, / encountered / unaware,

La Neige

The phantoms in the streetlight had returned to their posts. The ghost of her father hung in her mind. The 7/11 was open for snacks.

Public Letter/Hocus Opus Press/RE: Haywire Ray

In their rejection letter for my article--Dispatches of Haywire Ray, the biography and reflections of the titular illusionist--the Editor of Hocus Opus Press denounced my work as “a pure work of imagination,”

Fugitives

We wait in the car while the engine purrs / and I shiver in my Woody sweater / like it’s raining outside

Lonely Without Friends

The father stares down ten-year-old Darien. The boy rises and walks to the corner to wait for the light, then steps into the street and picks up the bottle. He brings the bottle back to his father.

Cerebral removalists

Moving house is moving between / pockets of time and space

The Relaxed Version of a Man

I sip my drink and read a book. The drink is fruity, over sweet, and alcoholic -- I hate drinking in the daytime, but I am on vacation and play the part. The book, it’s okay. If nothing else, it shades the irksome sun from my face.

Balaclava

He ignored his customers’ penetrating glares and sly whispers and began stacking cage eggs.

5:49p.m. on May 5, 1821 on St. Helena

who retreats?

teeth dreaming

there are no giants / there are no talking fish / there is no megalodon, / the dream is over.

Mood Killer

Droplets of sweat and rain threaded through the front of his hair as he blinked through the white lights in the front of the restaurant towards the large faux-rock counter.

trans culture is hating shirts

Trans culture is finding an old t-shirt / from your bottom drawer, / and immediately putting it back / to avoid a weird nostalgic feeling.

Exorcise Regime

We collect symbols and consume symbols and sometimes are consumed by symbols.

your bokoblin arm is badly damaged

— after The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

bathroom stall as a red room or a prayer closet

may you hunt me like a standoff of village

The Agenda

“For those of you who did arrive on time” he paused shooting Terence a glance, “the meeting today will be hideously punctuated by the untimely death of our colleague Terence. We are expecting the incident about halfway through the meeting, agenda item five.”

To Marketing, To Buy A Fat Pig

Spent so much time at work this week

I Baked You

Scant seconds to right / Before the video clock start

When the woman you have a crush on asks you to host a séance, you say yes

You’re not sure if you’re sleepy or uncomfortable, if your heart is stopping every few seconds by your hand or hers, there is something rotten about being mortal and even this crush-love—

Exemption

freedom from a false sense of connection

The Destroyers

healing the land will not come from working beyond our means

If Only for a Moment

I found myself somewhere between pleasure and fear. Surely that unflinching stare was searching for the very essence of my soul.

What Remains

Last Wednesday, there she was, sitting in the corner by the $675 splattered paint on wall by local artist installation when she saw it, approaching from the entrance and using the handicapped button to help it because without muscles it no longer had a strong grip.

Don't You Dare Take My Keys

First, take the brown vase / take the one close to it too, the vase with oriental motifs

A Guide to Living and Dying on the Digital Frontier

“Remind me again why you’re writing a burn piece about yourself.”

Poem After a Poetry Reading

other title ideas included / Fear and Railing in New York / Getting Railed on a Hammock

Punk Poem

viva la punk / viva el diablo / somewhere havin a laugh / they say god hates rock n roll / that’s ok because rock n roll hates god

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

The two detectives in front of me looked at each other, as if having a private conversation, and then back at me. The detective on the left, Detective Dowdy, leaned back in his seat and squinted. The disbelief in his eyes is clear.

Tussock Moths

Borderline broadcast / crocheted - haphazardly / by grandma’s arthritic fingers.

Leaking

At night I can feel my dreams crawl out and inject themselves into your side, I can feel the veins of the pillows pulsing through to each other.

Sacked

It’s so easy to have this idea of yourself and then not really live up to it.

Once Upon a Time in Maryland

The times were far from happy, but they were stable and predictable in their badness, and that was almost good, in its own way.

Tableau

There’s a cockroach wiggling in, above, and behind-below my gut

Last Ride

I do miss that sky.

Best in Show, Reserve Champion

This is not Apple Strudel’s first showing. She’s been shown from the Milky Way to the Pisco Nebula.

Philosophic Fragments

Love is a memory. Love is a memory that’s present, / A memory not resolved, not passing into past,

Desert Meadow

All through winter life burnt; all through spring. / Autumn, a spoke on the same wheel, will repeat

Strange Uterus

The fire danced, made the shadows quiver. The pile of mail, the letter opener on the cabinet, the single bookshelf: all creeping in at the edges of the darkness.

I’m glad I’m not rich because I’m pretty sure I’d be an asshole

you can never be an ocean / if you’re afraid to make waves

Before Kickball

Home plate the man hole cover / Pitcher’s mound that line of orange spray paint

One Dead Day

“What Should we do with the body?”

Bearded

It bifurcated at the chin and it bulged at the cheeks. It certainly did look like the objects being mimed.

Lake Shore Drive

Behind your grandfather's credenza / I found a photograph,

Childlike

Periodically, I've wanted to extend my youth, / When all the magic seemed to lose its spark,

Two Hooligans Dueling With Their Respective Finger Guns

Eventually the two put their finger guns away as if it had been a draw as each one backed away to different sides of the room.

Not That Story

Trouble was, there was a lot of trouble. Questions I didn’t understand, even though I worked there. A month or so before, I’d run into a group of art-school people sitting together around the curve of a bar, nice people, friendly.

Shuffle

There has been silence in the car for much of the hour-long drive. You have been mostly present but what is there to say. Honey, I'm sorry that I wrapped the car around a tree and for the last few weeks I've been a vegetable doesn't seem to cut it.

Expedition Passport

Blood showers on hot tin roof / Cain kills Abel to / Tenth Avenue jazz band tune / Blood mingles with sidewalk / Mingles with dandelion

A Sort of Homecoming

I say my goodbyes to my parents and my sister. I expect you to pat my back, but instead you pull me into a hug and I breath in the aftershave you have recently started using. I want this moment to be the start of a love story.

No One Wants a Girl with a Feeding Tube

CW: Hospital Imagery

Does Anyone Know What This Snake Is?

Is this a Copperhead?

Subscribe

I measure the rest of the time in empty envelopes / and the mechanic whirring of a fleet of slicing jaws. / There are only so many ways to spell cancel, and I’ve seen them all.

Work

I walked into Mr. Pfloe’s office and sat in the chair facing his desk. I could feel his eyes on me as I smoothed my skirt over my legs.

tic tac toe

there’s so many options / all of the classics are there / pong, pacman, and others / but you decide to go with / tic tac toe / (your personal favorite)

His Dog Spot

Names are meaningless. They just hide the nothingness from us for a little while.

Wearing Superman's Cape

A student gave me Superman’s cape, a parting gift when leaving my class. I put it on to pick my daughters up, watched it flutter a little in the wind and I guess the glasses pull together the whole Clark Kent look. The little one sucks on the corner

86 Bacon Until We Get Another Brown Marker

It might only be a 20 dollar hunk of cardboard from Target, but we threw it together in about half an hour with the proper A1 flap into the proper A1 slot and with a little coloring it’s a regular food truck slinging whatever we have on tap for

Small School

CW: Drug Use

Faces in the Trees

CW: Graphic Violence

Apathy

Do the macarena, the cupid shuffle, the hoedown throwdown,

Hide

I wish I could tell him of the benefits of birding.

you're too cool now

remember years ago / it feels like a multiverse

Keep Quiet

CW: Alcohol Abuse

Axis of Gratitude

Now please move that finger from the center of my left palm to the middle of my open wrist. This was the first movement you ever did when I met you standing at the bar like Samson.

The Collector

I loaded the tape into the VCR. It didn’t need to be rewound.

The Little Mermaid, Restrictive Parenting and Time Being a Joke

A Collaborative Poem

Hold Your Breath

If camping seaside & reading poetry & smoking comically large cigarettes is going Le Fou count me gone

I (Don't) Fuck With Cocaine

CW: Drug Use

Screenshot

CW: Homophobia

to the boy who called himself an athiest

what must kill you the most is that you know this

Pokémon and Other Eternal Sins

I liked to think that my spontaneous combustion was due to God not liking me very much

3 parts

It’s not enough to make it through the day

How Would You Rate Your Pain?

Almost gnat-like—this annoyance of flesh, this cicada sound between bones.

Bumper Sticker

Honk if you love me—honk like you mean it.

Against a Handful

“But this is a handful, right? It fits in my hand.”

Refriendship

I'm going to listen to that Neyo song, because for some reason it always makes me feel better.

Bag Lady

“But we’re dog people, Qiptyn.” Bathory’s vocal fry made the statement sound whinier than it was. “Emoji deserves the best.”

Bad Movie

We’d met the night before at a Meetup group for shy people. She told me she was Nigerian, just passing through, wanting to escape the punishing heat of her hometown and a family trauma.

Sticky Note Aubade

Did you notice / how long I lingered, / my nose pressed against your neck,

Why I Use Self Checkout

“All those injuries, man. I can’t believe all those injuries. Think they can pull it out?”

!A Dried Cleaning!

(just policy) (station whistle) (loser diction)

Boo-Ya

My child, my child, my child, My child, My child, there are bobcats hiding

The Thing About Two-Time Freestyle Skateboard Champion Mike Osterman Is That If You Ask Him to Walk the Dog, You’ll Have Piss All Over Your House

Still, you are caught in Mike Osterman’s gravitational pull, like so many others.

The Way of the Poncho Cult

They want to know if Doug has a message for its devoted followers, if it’s a force of good or evil, if it has chosen Gerard as its prophet.

Uno Reverse Blue, Back 2 U

It’s as if landlords looked at that vitruvian man n’ decided / that every body has a one-track-mind. The golden ratio is just ur shitty prop;

The Unification of Time

Violet knew the secret of the gods and why they are gods

I'll Say This Then I'll Shut Up

by Sean Ennis It is true that there are too many guitars in this world, all the strumming and plucking. Grace puts on Lee Montgomery or Bob blabbermouth Dylan and it’s like she’s trying to hurt my feelings. “This is American music,” she says. We’re sort of

poem in which i’m the bad guy

the worst thing about cleaning is you always have to clean

nostalgia for what never was

in the livingroom i thought it was the coolest thing i’d ever seen

Observations Regarding the Incarceration and Rehabilitation of Eastern State Penitentiary Prisoner Number C-98xx

At the trial, the convict’s mother, who wished to retain her dignity, sat stone-faced while the court pronounced her youngest son’s fate: first-degree murder, 30 years to life.

Safety First

except it was there. Injury / happened to other people, / but I never gave it much thought.

Telescreen

The worst part is / I signed up for this, / and keep coming back for more.

The Ghost's Leavetaking

Another wood knock. Hard to tell how far away, or even from which direction. The scene is an inversion now.

What is a baseball

A baseball, on the other hand, is something everyone can agree on.

Flow

Ranging from ecstasy to dampened mood

House Party

Life is a party so let’s make the most of it

Colleagues and Friends

It’s the first time in three months I’ve heard so much English, and between the bull and the barbeque, I can almost mistake it for home.

Unidentified Snack-Mix, Orange and Salty (Last Seen Possibly Becoming The Christ)

There was comfort in all these things, like I was placing my isolated act of snacking in my recliner, alone in a small room, into a framework of collective experience.

Lengthy Footnote Covering Unusual Disturbances at the Township Council Meeting, County Ledger Entry No. 205599428a

Of course, the entire Council, as a whole, was disgusted by Mrs. Cartwagon’s obvious lack of concern for the law, but we decided to let that go so that we could hear the rest of the story.

Instructions

If you find a doorknob in the trash...

Queer Boys Are Still Having Sex

“Gay sex, by definition, is transgressive.”

Embodying Language

A visual poem by Jill McCabe Johnson - "The body is a situation" Melissa Mathewson

Under the Thumb of Patriarchy

A visual poem by Jill McCabe Johnson

The Widowmaker Tried to Kill Me, But Failed Miserably

I didn’t know I’d had a heart attack until the morning after, once the stent was in and I’d had a good night’s sleep flat on my back with a weighted pillow on my upper thigh where the surgeon cut into my femoral artery.

the reason my insides are so swollen

CW: talk of muscles and bones, dysphoria

(safe house)

CW: fire/smoke, death, religious trauma

My Stuff Out in Tucson

“My Stuff Out in Tucson” is an eerie foreshadowing of the events that unfold in the writer’s forthcoming novel, Good-Bye, Lo Siento. You can follow him on Twitter at @lakemarkham for updates.

Chequered

Late again, amid a forgotten torrent of bleach

Greed is Some Nutters Interpretation of Modernism

Everyone knows the heart pumps blood in

Make a Wish

Grown-ups were always telling us to make a wish; when blowing out our birthday candles, when finding a four-leaf clover, when snapping the wishbone on the chicken after Sunday lunch.

Jazz Standard

“i’m old fashioned”

Shit Hawks

“Anthony, look what I found.” Tara’s kid shakes me awake. When I turn my head, particles of sand come unstuck from my face. “It’s beach glass, right?”

Nihilism for the Middle-Aged

Because what does it mean anyway

Ode to the Desert Cottontail

Of all the animals in the Mojave Desert, the desert cottontail is among the more overlooked.

My Road Trip with Rumphous

When I find Rumphous, two miles outside of town, he has devoured a family of cats and is growling at a boy and his dad, who are locked in their car, too scared to get out.

A New Fever

Overnight, we are spring again.

A Second Life

the articulated skeleton / of the rooster with / his boiled chest,

Seussical

Mask, shirt, sweatshirt, pants, socks, shoes, each a different shade of black. Sheet music. Clarinet. Bass clarinet. Backup reeds and backup reeds and backup reeds. Unnecessary pencil.

Eighteen Plus Benefits

“We’ve got to clean up the garbage,” she says.