My novel is my father, I am saying, and it too is the best art I could make but not the best art I will make. For I am 33 and my feminist Jungian therapist says often: the beginning of adulthood is forgiving your parents for their sundry errors.
Understand, neurotic perfectionists are mostly calculated
We left after midnight. We entered the forest, dark and green all around us, hundreds of miles deep. Woven together in the little cocoon of our car, our world was as large as the headlight beams in the dark forest.
For four days in 1997 I was a beam of light. Fuck off if you don’t believe me: I lit shit up. Daniel Ladinsky says Hafiz says, “The oil in the lamp the sun burns come from forests you once were, from rich deposits you left [behind],” but he was probably speaking metaphorically.
The next day I send the above photo to a friend in Michigan. She asks if I'm fine. And what the doctor recommended. My response is typed laughter. I tell her I've been taking it easy. Staying medicated. But the chance of seeing a doctor is slim. The hospitals are over run. She's a little surprised. It's contrary to what she's been told.
thinking about how all of it started
thinking about how the poems ends
They aren’t the most attractive boys at school—not smarter or more stylish and certainly no more articulate. Their appeal is a mystery to anyone who isn’t under their spell.
The problem was I’d forgotten about the change in altitude. The grief counselor had suggested a getaway, so I fled the Alleghenies for the Rockies and the guest bedroom of my best college friend on a quiet block in Denver.
Thank you, everyone, for coming. I'd like to thank Mrs. Keether for this opportunity to speak...
I believe it now—I’d be a fool not to—but that doesn’t mean I agree with it.
four small test tubes.
It was a franchise, the Prez thing, but one as secret as the mob.
But life was good for clowns back then
The blonde girl I liked made a scooping motion with her hands while saying things like ‘it’s not even that late’ and ‘come on, come on’ and ‘it’ll be soooo much fun’ and ‘let’s go you fucking piece of shit.’
Okay, so there’s that sound again, and you know it isn’t Tommy or Lindsey trying to scare you, because they’ve been asleep for over an hour and you’re certain the sound is coming from the basement
I am reading a poem called “George Washington” in a book of poems called George Washington in a bar called The Library in the Lower East Side of Manhattan where I am spending my last twelve dollars on four beers and my last four dollars on tipping the bartender because happy hour still hasn't started.
My friend takes caffeine pills between classes and shakes in the bathroom, on the floor under the sinks.
Tiny Evolutions
okay so let’s talk
about the exes we mythologize
for the wrong reasons like leave
a toothbrush at my bathroom sink
and call it love and baby
I’ll promise ring your
Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time playing Candy Crush Saga on the old iPhone Jan gave me while watching TV.
