I Love You Because You Don't Exist
Katie Frank
You asked if I wanted to send you the latest version of my story as a Google doc so you could add comments. You offered to send me one of your stories in return.
that was the year that all the carnivals came to town. sounds like a fake small town thing, but when you live in a small town, all the things that happen are fake small town things, except they’re
The summer I was allergic to tap water was the summer I lost all my friends. School was out but nobody wanted to be around me except for Joel who wasn’t really my friend to begin with but sort of became one afterwards. It was understandable. I couldn’t shower and, well, to be perfectly honest, I smelled bad. Joel didn’t seem to mind, though. He worked the check-out at the general store and taped his ear to his head.
We’ll leave your hair for the birds, she’d say, so they’ll build their nests to keep themselves and their babies protected.
You asked if I wanted to send you the latest version of my story as a Google doc so you could add comments. You offered to send me one of your stories in return.
And V, who had been high all day and drinking since around 4pm, suddenly realized how fucking bored she was of all of it, of once again drinking her way through grad school in a cool city going to goth nights with people she was or wasn’t in love with and so V thought about getting up mid-sentence and leaving and calling her old sponsor and hitting up a late night AA meeting or maybe even just going home and getting some sleep or crying but instead she just listened to herself charmingly talk about nothing until she couldn’t stand it and asked the girl to dance.
i think you can learn a lot about a person
based on their Super Smash Bros main. or starsign.
or by asking. how convenient to be told? to learn
in spite of our own misgivings. part of growing
I wake to the shuffle of wind along the sill.
The soft moon hue weighs on my blanket, saying nothing.
From the fragile dark, experiences remembered
become rocks tied to my ankles and feelings churn
As a kid, you don’t really know how swings work. You just move your legs and you get higher and higher. You find out later, regarding the swing, it’s because you are using your momentum through gravity, generating centripetal force to be exact, which creates a back and forth motion. But, for now, on that playground, your sister is swinging next to you and she laughs and yells, Higher! Higher!
What is my obligation in this moment? Is it to my body or to my daughter’s?
Years later, he asked “Do you still use this email?”
and I replied “No.”
Sometimes
trauma is a prerequisite for softness.
It depends on where you’re from,
and who you ask, but you should always ask.
I wish him luck and watch him until he’s halfway around the bowl. There’s something about a chance encounter, especially in baseball, where you don’t want to know too much.
I couldn't fully recall the Simpsons episode in which Marge buys a near-identical pink Chanel dress.
I was a glamour upon a glamour upon a glamour, a mouth devouring a mouth devouring a mouth.
hemos vuelto heridos de una guerra que todavía no empieza
yo perdí una de mis extremidades
y él las perdió todas
HOW DO I GET MORE WEIRD RUSSIAN ART GALS TO FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM I ASK BECAUSE THEY HAVE THE MOST INTERESTING PROFILES AND SEEM LIKE THEY COULD SUCK YOUR DICK SO GOOD THEY COULD ROB YOU OF
Imagine being so famous and blonde that people love you so much they hate you again.
When I entered the shop, the cashier looked at me like someone holding a toilet seat.
according to my mother, men
are just thieves rifling through another’s calm...
You can never return to the track. A hard truth, heaven knows, but heed me— delay the wreck
and coma. Take a longer backwards way and savor that last downhill run, the final door to close.