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

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

Lie here with me, if only for a while.

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.

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

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

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

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

if i tally it
every time
my tongue finds cherry

do you still
pull your thumb down my lip
sweet surrender

in the other city
the social concepts that killed me here
stay peripheral 

It’s abundantly clear that Gass sweat blood over this novel, every word chosen with the utmost care, a master at work.

When I came of age, the rules were a little different. We were all facing the same battle back then, so it didn’t matter as much what labels we used for each other.

Like, what the fuck is this dude’s problem?

And as I darkened, I needed nothing.

  There were times I could barely leave bed, but he insisted we spend weekends in Palm Springs.

No one answered her when she asked where they were taking me. I'd heard of people being dumped in parking lots. I'd heard of people being flown to Texas, to fucking El Salvador, legal citizens with no practical recourse.

This was my chance! I moved to the seat in front of her and we lay across our seats and laughed together like a yin-yang necklace coming back together.

or because I’d seen him unwrap the extra large condom and suddenly longed, anxiously and fatuously like a girl wanting her stuffed animal, for my first boyfriend who weighed less than me