His unbuttoned shirt, his summer breakfast. The gesture of his mouth was the opening of unsaid words.

The gigolos texted me back while my mom and I watched Zootopia 2

Fury Psalm 6:

Let there be a God, an earth, seasons weathered through a time
for this, for that, for breathing and for holding one’s breath.

Let there be seasons when the moon has nothing to be

Lie here with me, if only for a while.

I was on my morning jog when I saw what I believed to be a young man asleep or dead in the sand.

Sitting in his gold Toyota listening to old metal. He turned down The Accused to tell me about his diagnosis.

“The Upper East Side. For uncreative rich people who don't know the first thing about being happy,” Mom said, and I believed her.

Avery was the worst kind of people pleaser. A failed one who didn’t know how to make other people happy but attempted only to her own demise. When Sienna asked Avery if she wanted to steal, the yes

then
the eagle is healed

It is warm in the theatre. The chair is comfortable. The trailers ended and most of the films looked good. A Coca Cola ad begins playing, which is the second to last thing they show before the movie.

She walks around like a colt in a kitchen I don’t know, bluish crescent bruise on her calf flashing every couple of turns at me.

I would take you as you are and were
over all this dead air.

I met the man who would become my Uncle through an insane-clown-posse-adjacent dishwasher coworker who wanted us to star in his uncomfortably misogynistic Instagram horror movie.

I had just moved

When the sun went down, I saw the man on the sidewalk. He had fallen onto his suitcase with a shopping bag at his feet. The light turned green. A car honked behind me. I drove ahead, but a pedestrian

I wanted him to understand my fascination with small creatures.

His dismissal to reduce me to my womanhood and paycheck fucked me.

Am I too old?              Nah,

I’ve yet to wear

my trousers rolled.

But      this morning

coffee in bed,              my wife 

and I scrolling — 

Hers:               prison

She wrapped her arm around his back in a quick half-hug that made it easy for him to tuck the envelope in her purse. She excused herself to the bathroom so she could count it.

I looked him up on Instagram. The only thing publicly linked to him was a photo of his smiling face in the cockpit of a 737, posted by the National Gay Pilots Association from 2020.

I left Texas to have him. Not for him, but for me: so that I would survive.

I sat down. Cassandra ordered a glass of wine. “I hope this wasn’t sudden,” she said.

i wonder how hard it is for her to 

reconcile being a Christian and a witch

judge and judged. how easy 

Thus commences the portion of the evening in which you retrieve the Svedka again to sober up

cause that is all we knew 

we drank liquor, smoked crack, 
escorted prostitutes around in our car,

hoping for a bisquit, or a small dead bird,
a song sweetly sung; that no one ever heard.

I listen to Queen. “Another One Bites the Dust.” The soundtrack of my life.

And I wonder if we are always standing at the street corner eating each other’s hearts.