First Week of April, Los Angeles
(as transcribed from the iCalendar “what really happened”)
1
got... more
And it was at that moment—seeing that light and realizing that other people were together in the world in that very same light while he was in an alley watching himself on TV—that he finally felt something: an overwhelming, honest and simple sense of sadness that felt like a beautiful release.
At eighteen I got two stars tattooed on my ankle. I used to tell people a variety of stories: they were falling stars, they were the stars from... more
The following is either a CONFESSION or a LIE or a LITERARY EXPERIMENT. Choose Your Own Adventure. If you would like... more
The trouble began with the intern’s new coffee pot.
“Look,” Daniel paused and took a sip of water, “I was going to introduce you to my mother. And I realized I wasn’t ready. And then I thought, when will I be ready? When would it be a good time?
What I've written here is, of course, something that Kurt Cobain will never know. On April 8, the discovery... more
I became obsessed with the idea of bunting. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I wanted to make my own.
10,000 years from now
two men will be
digging
in the ground
and they’ll find
a frisbee
buried... more
"I’m always looking for ways to pay more attention. I thought maybe I could be a better writer if I knew what private investigators knew, if I could see a clue for what it was. I’m still learning."
What was that movie where the kids were all deaf, you asked suddenly. They put on a performance. They sang Rang-a-rang! Clang-a-clang-clang—something like that?
to gain followers I use my body then / I lose them with my poems
After I turned thirty-five, the age of forty circled me like a shark. My dread of it intensified with each passing year. On my thirty-eighth... more
The machine sleeps in the corner. Its dreams are projected onto large white walls where we watch them and record our reactions.
while i / in half-lotus / pluck stubble from / my belly
Nostalgia style: you miss your Double Double
before you even take a bite. You know
burgers become slimy wax paper crumbles,
babies become toddlers, toddlers become
“Get in here!” yelled Grandma. “Carrot Head is gonna sing!”
Daisy was going to community college classes out on SE 82nd and trying to figure out what direction her life should take. Her classes were Dental Hygiene, Religious Studies, and Ethics in Improv Comedy.
It’s the sun, I told myself again. Too much sun makes people too hyper, too happy, too sure of themselves. What we need is a little rain, some dark clouds, a berating storm.
Rain drags its cage / through the neighborhood. You / see nothing but // trenches. Rusty shovels, / the alien rocks sprayed / like genitals.
Ironically, hours before we went to see Whoopi, I texted two friends from my bathtub that I didn’t think I would ever write another essay. It was “too hard.” “People only want to vilify you, so they look for words to use to that end, and ignore the rest of what you’ve said.”
