i wanna drift like they do...

“And then after I came out to my wife, she stumbled across People Can Change,” said the man from Fresno.

Don’t they let you? Don’t they ever let you lay down your head?

The mushrooms I bought yesterday are moldy; the lines around my mouth have deepened. Tomorrow I am a mother for the first time.

Previously on...
Part 6  ||  Part 5  ||  Part 4  ||  Part 3  ||  Part 2  ||  Part 1  ||  Prologue

I Googled things that bond people. Google said trauma.

We’ve sat in pot smoke-filled basements, watching boys play video games, and I’ve sipped wine with my parents on special occasions, but neither of us have been to an actual party before.

Ken pounded out three novelty songs on his busted up acoustic guitar, looking like a knock-off Daniel Johnston.

To try to allay his doubt, or figure out of it’s real, [Li] mentally consults his in-progress novel, as if it were a friend. He intuits, in an intuition described by the line you quoted, that his doubt is wrong, is habitual and self-sabotalogical.

If a ghost is the impression you leave after you, then the divot you leave in your old bed is a ghost. 

Gratitude is not the response she expected. She smiled through thin lips, missing the hoped-for fight.

Gunderson could hear the vehicle’s noisy carping from eight blocks away, like a herd of wild trashcans rolling down the street.

Oh, absolutely a mistake to have given the wealthy Protein Bar Daddy my number.

Playin’_The_Keys

i love to dance, sing, write, chill, read
and play the keys, but sometimes, life
doesn’t allow me to hang out
and do my thing, which means
i have to divide my time into many

My son is fifteen when he asks the first question I am unable to answer.

When the Santa Anas whipped into town, everyone became a little crazier. They invited the wildfires as if to burn the witches amongst us. 

My last suicide attempt was in a park called Jesus Green. I said ‘last’ because I gave up, not because it worked. Writing plays tricks with life and death so you need to make things clear.

I’m Writing from the Other Side of the Universe to Ask You How the Weather Is

This is a soft rain, my father says, his forehead a creased encyclopedia page. It is mao mao yu in Chinese, syllables

Seventeen days since you spoke your last words to me. They repeat themselves in my mind, I never want to forget them.

Song for 2 Phones

     What is that?
The line outside
the Maria Bamford standup
we went to last year.
          Send it to me.
     What is that?
A sugar maple on the hill
shedding Gatorade