Us—playing God, getting got.

I taste cigarette in her mouth.

But even that line is taken from a movie
because I don’t have the audacity
to reach inside and find something new

When we met, I was dazzled by how easily she surrendered to her desire. She’d wake up late and order breakfast from the store down the street, roll in late to work and not think twice.

I went in every Manhattan bookstore looking for The Cows by Lydia Davis.

'Let's all go down to the river' I said...

Lippens, like most writers and artists in general, occupies this space slightly distanced from the commotion of the world.

I can’t read in Farsi but I taught him how to say kiss, my flower, small, my heart and now the florists know

We had a shared Google Doc titled ‘Ground rules for this relationship’.

my first hospitalization was at 13 after swallowing a bottle of Tylenol.

in navigating the intensely competitive, hierarchical world of ‘online indie lit’ I wedded this lust with near-constant envy, joy at others’ failures and bitterness at their success,

I wanted to feel like a domestic woman, like the kind of woman who made salmon and vegetables before going out. Then I was that woman because I’d tried to be her.

I have the feeling that, if she wished, Tiff could control me entirely through simple elbow voodoo; just a loose jet-lagged tilt and I would fall to the floor, start foaming at the mouth.

Fought so hard to be this self— this man in front of you. I’m free to wear pink and piss in the urinal.

8: Perhaps we’ve misheard. Perhaps our facility with language will lead to our downfall. Perhaps the public lauding of our own personas is parasitic and causes continuous displacement.