The walls, statues, and shrines of the New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum are covered in offerings to the spirits—or loa—represented within. Plaques have pennies and dimes resting on their frames; there is a wishing stump filled with dollar bills. And there is lip-gloss everywhere.

And she doesn’t know a word of German, except “bier.”

One day I came across an inverted map of the Western Hemisphere. Cape Horn was in Alaska's usual position. I felt very disturbed, like air was flooding into the space above North America and

Likely I’ll fail to properly introduce Zachary Tyler Vickers’ debut, Congratulations on Your Martyrdom!, so I’ll make no fancy words about it: this collection of interconnected stories—comprised of

love becoming, like an apple,
this requires time, starred
blossom, then summer, the attention
of bees, grown men
bow their heads, concentrating
on the national anthem
in stadiums

You've told me you feel like a bat.

What you don't mean is your wings.
Or the development of a reflex that draws your ears toward small sounds.

What you do mean is that you're

[Previously on... Part 7 :: Part 6 :: Part 5 :: Part 4 :: Part 3 :: Part 2 :: Part 1]

Lt. Pup is now teleporting back to a desolate Earth, where Cat kind is attacking the dogs with tactical

After watching the TEDx Talk, I initially thought, “I wonder if everyone who watches that video will try to write a memoir.”

There’s an episode of The Outer Limits where Alyssa Milano plays a college student that eats men whole with her vagina.

You write a book with three parts. Sure, a few critics come down hard, but mostly the book is appreciated.

brick

once in 2011

someone at a party

offered me rum

mixed with cough medicine

from a 1 liter plastic bottle of generic orange soda

i thought

this will make

I saw myself on the Jumbotron. Locked eyes on my eyes looking elsewhere.

A fleet of pickup trucks and a white panel van have taken all the shady spots outside my parents’ house.

The computers will run an error the size of oceans howling crazy for the pale moon & will hurtle through our bodies to get there. My brother says the lights across the river will burn out. 

It will be great to hear how you have been! Hope we can get to everything in the seven seconds I have allotted our interaction.

[practice breathing, talk to snakes, how to suck venom from a wound]

     -february 3, 2012: “I’m getting better at branching out”

I want as a reader to be transformed and thrown off balance by what I read, and I try to do that for my reader as well.

Mathias LaFleur: the first Eagles Got Talent contestant ever clapped off stage.

The narrator of Ben Lerner’s 10:04 goes to see The Clock at Lincoln Center in New York. The Clock was at Lincoln Center from July 13, 2012 to August 1, 2012, but in the book’s acknowledgements, Lerner explains that time in the novel does not always correspond to time in the world. This creates a sort of magical New York where Occupy Wall Street, The Clock, and Hurricane Irene can all be happening practically at the same time.

Whose hometown are we in in the dream? :: Do you hold my hand or do you disembowel me? Whose side are you on, anyway? :: My confession on this Sunday morning is: we are all human.

His first sensory seizures were like a passing light-headedness.

They stopped my mother’s heart four times.

I’m pretty sure very few people fantasize about being burned at the stake, but I do think there’s something fantasy-like in a witch burning – putting a ‘dangerous’ woman in a submissive pose, publicly humiliating her, watching her scream and writhe as her clothes and then flesh burn away.

You have been saved in vain.

Sigh, my beloved. May I be her Pepe Le Pew?

Hello, I'm the wise giraffe. Tell me how and why you came here.