He wondered, "What if I never get out of the shower?" and just like that he never did.

"Tight coils come / up floating in / my husband's peppermint..."

We can't feel how fast we're falling...

I was nineteen, still felt like a kid, and Tom seemed to like me. 

She is thinking that when you make love, your brain opens, and everyone knows what you are thinking, and you know what everyone else is thinking, so your husband knows what you are thinking and can control you.

I told him about Nebraska and how it was a dried up ancient ocean bed, how farmers harvested corn and clicks, how there might be kings buried under the freshly tilled soil or angels who dusted the August crops.

When the ground thaws and the air grows thin, the boys come crawling out of the valley to your doorstep at the foot of Mount Rose.

             after Ruby/Hilary 

For just 
fifteen seconds

out of my twenty-
six years living

I imagine 
myself 

a white woman

bones breaking
in a new way

my

I packed into this room during my second year's semester break of university. For all the years before, I slept with my mother upstairs. Our building is a three-story building built with rocks and

I saw her in front of us then, and she struck me: white parka down to mid-calf meeting white Ugg boots, white hood drawn over head.

For a few years, before Carl’s dad won a scratch-off ticket and no one ever saw him again, I called Carl my best friend.

Charlie would never cannibalize me; he’d have nothing to eat. 

I posted a picture of my rarely used kayak on Facebook late at night.

On Sunday morning, at eight central in middle Tennessee, I watch the Grand Prix. This season is the 70th anniversary of the FIA Formula One World Championship, which feels like enough of a reason to

This is the Santa crushing it on Etsy.

This is the Santa denied unemployment.

This is the Santa whose Zoom background brought his therapist to tears.

This Santa doesn’t give a shit—he’s a

She lives with her mom

two states away

and I wish this was all

I've failed to teach her. 

I’m now constructing a mental pool for how long these two can keep up the corporate veneer before they go insane or at least pop Gene in the teeth or at least say Okay you’re done no more pineapple and then whisk away the tray of pineapple Mom and I have not stopped noshing and ogling and noshing...

The first time I went rock climbing, I lasted 30 minutes.

On Shaving my Legs for the First Time

the offending hairs that sprout from dark skin
like unwelcome ants that toil through the night

hairs that signal virility on my father’s chin
draw taunts