Please cc my soul / on every email...

The circular is peppered with the “free” of Buy One Get One Free, as opposed to the “free” that is both propaganda and sacred text. I know, in total, the Arabic for peach, name, gesundheit, and thank you.

im always in the wrong lane

And oh god it’s wonderful sitting here, drinking too much coffee, eating too many pastries, and loving everything about this moment. 

"Foul Machine" and "Randy Got an Idea"

which is not a signal / but a storm warning...

Medical professionals are careful to point out that cerebral palsy itself doesn’t inhibit sexual desire or function, though studies show that most young adults with CP report physical problems related to sexual contact.

I went looking for her. He went looking for her. She went looking for her. They went looking for her. 

We all went looking for her.

I look. 
You look. 
He looks. 
She looks. 
They look. 
We

An immigrant from the Russian Empire invented jeans...

She never sticks around for harvest (though she convinced you to plant rosemary, lavender, zinnias, to think of time as a full moon, as a thrush’s song), you’ll say, but O the planting season. The spry seedlings at the start.

Each year, the clouds lowered. Each year, the boys' hopes crept closer to their grasp.

Arranged in front of Papa were a cup of coffee, his glass eye, and a shot of whiskey.  One by one, they would patch him up before he left for work.  The sun hadn’t yet chinned the horizon, and we sat

I knew you'd come undone...

"By the Seashore" and "The Return"

Still, he wants me to keep strutting down my freak lane, says “Gucci” like “Coochie” on “White Freckles”.  

My almost-ex was freaking out in the way only men with egos can.

"On Trepidation" and "When I'm Lonely, I Shop Online for Things I Don't Need"

"32 questions for a photograph" and "Blue Door"

Always, I am navigating some half-abandoned landscape— part future, part past. Whenever I have a companion, it is my ex husband—the man who, after our divorce seven years ago, moved states away, leaving me to raise our kids mostly solo. On this particular morning, it finally occurs to me that these dreams may not be normal.

Jeff O told us that he and Brian H split after watching Chasing Amy...

 sat on my couch for twenty-four hours popping oxycontin while I watched a full season of Gilmore Girls. Lorelai and Rory were not on speaking terms and I missed my mom.

It doesn’t sit right anymore, so neither does he. But in the Brooklyn neighborhood where my mom grew up, he’d walk on his hands for an audience of Irish-Catholic children. Older now than he was then, they’re still in awe. 

My brother always comments on how big the sky is in my little stretch of western Kentucky. We crane our necks and peer at the sickle moon, the unblinking stars.

If my father decided to do it...

There’s a picture of you at queer prom, in the photo booth, faces alight with total bliss.