Tara and I were impressed by the Goth subculture Goth Ryan and Tara’s boyfriend took part in not just because of the black strappy clothes, black fingernails, and heavy eye makeup (which we immediately began imitating), but also their directness and openness about feelings of sadness and rottenness. 

Doodles had no memory of life before the circus.

It was over by the apples where I noticed her. She was reaching for a Braeburn, smelling it, and when she looked to her right, I saw her face. Pretty. Pale skin and dark eyes. So familiar.

Where

hella errands before dark / hella bros still on the clock

Blue auras transmitted in a backroom, patched / by metal through our fingertips. The reality of my / posture in Polaroid, bloated figure at home in some / crowning, dispiriting frieze.

One day we were instructed to pair up for a meditation.  Our mats were side by side

In a house, lungs are the window. Organs, vases on shelves in rooms. Visitors are light.

they’re starting to appeal to women
who had written them off as lunatics.

That night, I spent hours scrolling reels on Instagram. I stopped to watch a monkey on skis.

The women and I had met in a 12 step program
So there were things we didn’t tell each other
And one of my things was
I’d written a comedy special years ago
In the heart of my alcoholism
Which is when, I guess,
You’re most likely to write
A comedy special

Everyday hajj to the blackdesk obelisk. 

Train back and forth.

I am five minutes tall, seated at my desk.

I shrink by seconds, bored and melancholic.

I must have turned bright red as I watched him spin, dance and sing.

The nineteen year olds in the grocery section who tell me I look like Wednesday are yelling into their walkie talkies. 

A ground spinner in the shape of Saturn which promises its rings are sexier than all the emperor’s concubines combined, than all of your wishes fulfilled. Poppers and fountains. I think my boss’s daughter groomed me. Rich kid calling in the help to get on his knees and pleasure his betters.

I didn’t want anyone else’s cynicism rubbing off on me and diminishing the essences’ effects. I knew, I had to believe.

I asked him to bring me some nachos from the mini mart he worked at. We had rebound sex on my futon.

The night of the party got off to a bad start when Shawna forgot she already took her anxiety meds and popped a second pill to calm down.

Some spit clogged in my hair and snot dripped down to my mouth.

Sadness pervades. That's of course nothing unusual, sadness and poetry are bosom buddies.

A giant home, all cubes, angles, and no soul. Whose party? Whose house? There was a man who resembled Jesus on cocaine floating around in a scarlet bathrobe. His name was Maximus and he said he does IP acquisitions. Why’s everything in this town so damn vague?

The official San Francisco LESBIAN GAY BISEXUAL TRANSGENDER PRIDE parade was the social highlight of our year.

You see Truth in yourself, and you realize we’re all having this complex, beautiful, and sometimes very dark human experience. Nothing is original. We’re all in this together. 

Put simply, Swinehart writes like Wallace, and this similarity reminds me of something Wallace once said in an interview with Richard Powers and John O’Brien about his ideal reader: “If stuff is going well, it feels like I’m talking to somebody. Or like there’s somebody there. And I think it’s somebody rather suspiciously like me.”

if i / am left with lack, let it be / infinite, stretching further / than any man’s tongue

Sometimes I wake up to my own asthma / making small morse codes.

if you listen to duran duran while prancing around in nature and it's mostly overcast, you will feel like you're missing, but not loved enough to be put on a milk carton