This party is great, Maria, it’s really something special. You said this to our host as if she were our friend. Really, we’d known Maria for fifteen minutes and you already wanted to get into bed with her. You wanted a ménage à trois. This sounded stupid and French, but I wanted to get in bed with her too. Though my version of events wouldn’t involve you.

            On the rare occasion that I left the house – to buy Heinz ravioli and oranges for myself

I felt pitiful writing.

What distances between / Intent and flesh, a life / Beyond each brazen vow: / If only swords could be drawn / Against every problem

“Quality takes money,” she said.

Dancing had always been my weapon. I don’t let myself think.

It feels weird knowing that my parents stalk my art website as a way of seeing what I’m up to. It’s one thing to be naked in front of strangers… but to be naked in front of my parents…

The sun is citrus— / orange ruptured guts / emblazoning / a golden Buddha / reclining among macaques 

The Kratom store felt like a doctor's office. A guy in a white shirt and jeans next to a slumped woman attended to us.

5. you are paralyzed like a deer in the middle of the road / a car is / a. hurtling towards you at full speed / b. disappearing into the distance

Without gloves, the nurse injected me and stuck the bloody needle into the bed.

The first night I slept with R, he took Viagra and Adderall. He treated me to the sex marathon of my dreams and instantly cemented himself as the man at the top of my roster.

I took a 10mg edible and brushed my teeth in the bathroom at LAX that evening.

But most of all, I want to shove my head beneath the depths of any river, to gargle on the bubbles, because I want to swallow the sky when any sun is visible through the drowning.

I was sick for four months, but it was not the kind of sick I was used to: it was a numbing contagion. Under darkened skies, I coughed up the particles of illness. I looked at the walls

But we barely make it out of his sight and into the room before Xi’s on her back with her one leg up, foot on the concrete wall, both arms out straight, hands on my chest, holding me off.

Imagine a young honeymooning couple on their way to Polynesia, the husband’s forgotten his John le Carré on the train home from work: well no matter, here’s the novelization of Sorcerer to tide him over on a fourteen-hour flight, a portable cinematic experience in prose.

When you think of birds of prey, you probably don’t think of a Shrike. Unless you’re really into birds

In terms of security, the website for Foster Care, Adoption, and Family Services wasn’t exactly armed.

Everyone is fucking me on the internet

It makes me want to take back everything I’ve said, unfeel what I felt.

We dressed as Luke and Lorelai from Gilmore Girls that year;

I'm going to get canceled for probably half this shit I'm saying.

It took her years to realize he was an oppressor. It took her one night to be rid of him.

It is a gift / to be alone in this world / together with everyone / and everything / we’ve ever loved 

It really is beautiful, he thinks, taking another puff on his joint, how music brings people together.