It's easier for me to write a poem wherein I don't have to reassure my reader that I'm going to be okay, because I don't know the answer.

I know nothing
of what you’ve
become

“They don’t mind you sleeping with their wives?” I asked

Dash wore a jean jacket. He’s been wearing the same one for 15 years. The one in his Tinder picture. Dash, 29, one mile away. He sent me a screenshot of that, even though I had gone off online dating.

“Nice? Becca threw a drink in a guy's face for touching her ass last night, and you missed it because you were off talking to a nice guy?” She used air quotes around the word nice.

Jimmy was dead, and I had slept with all of the eligible coworkers.

I give them all a careful look and say things like, “Oooh, this is an extra special egg.”

Finally, one small voice from the tiniest of the nieces near the couch squeaked, “Fuck Gregor.”

Rehab was called Willow Springs

Now when I see someone hurting, from the loss of a lover, I never say, “You’ll get over it.”

There's some man on the internet and I think he's stalking [redacted] and [redacted] and [redacted]

The sensation of my stomach eating itself into a lovely inward slope sustains me. Keep smiling.

Rawdogging reality
isn’t for the faint of heart

Judging from popular discourse, the novel is in serious jeopardy, perhaps even an endangered artform, having been beset by a myriad of threats that include the advent of the digital age and a

Charlie would never have to be persuaded to eat pussy, I thought to myself as my date’s tongue fumbled with the flaps around my clit.

I couldn’t help but wonder if I was just feeling bad for myself. She was alive. We’re all so strange. It really breaks my heart sometimes. Marisol wanted a young man’s cock. I wanted to give her rose petals. Oh, how full of shit I was.

The following is an excerpt from Smith’s forthcoming acid western novel.

Clem is a worldly fella, but he’s not much for talking so I get fragments here and there. Got to the West from Russia the

J’s task was to ensure each of 3 men that they had a connection with a girl.

She had sent me a video of herself in the bath listening to Elvis, and I watched that over and over.

She wanted to go under beautifully, before decomposition

Forgive yourself, as there is no other option but to forgive yourself.

I’d love to keep her locked away in legends, but she walks and grows among us.

Fun Legs

Vaguely, like in somebody else’s dream,
one of those strange cell-phone settings ringing.
No it’s the doorbell. Forgot we had one.
I slip on my Hyatt Regency robe.

It’s almost happy

I dreamt of the mystery woman, still faceless, and I woke up haunted.

Have you ever wondered why that voice in your head telling you to try harder doesn’t sound like your voice?

She bites at a knuckle hoping to draw her private, savage joy. What’s it taste like? You don’t want to know. You can’t imagine how hard it is to stop after.