When I laughed, I laughed like someone crying in a movie. I pushed my face in the pillow, and I laughed, and I forgot what was funny.

And the night continues in every whisper, / Until you lead me home, / To a far away temple, / To be with spirits, unknown to my tongue.

When I turn around, Nana stares at me like a startled bird. Dream people have nothing to say once they’re exposed. They go very still and gray—heavy, like sculptures—and dissolve.

At 3PM in an orange-lit cafe on 22nd street I eclipse and come clean to Cece by deleting Hinge

I don't think I've ever had a "fast hot affair."

A journey begun several feet beyond redemption / a line crossed, erased from behind. / Walking through trammeled ground / the path worn to a gully. / Have been here before. / The trees rise and reach.

Like a white-hot biblical angel.

The two possums in love / are a projection I prefer / to the alternative / indifference / at the worm-heart of all things.

When we first met you were driving the wrong way down the interstate / Cops in tow / LED headlights blinding / Wagecucked chattel like me / I was just another piece of collateral damage / Bulldozed in your wake 

“I’m ready to try again.” Claire said.

I know I wouldn’t think this way if I’d made some effort to become a better person, but at this point, it’s too late. I’ve come to believe that when you choose a way of living, you need to commit to it like religion or it won’t stick.

Reward: $200. Reward: whatever you want. Reward: I will come get him in my pajamas, I will come get him from anywhere, I will come get him.

During the holiday of their second year, they were nineteen. He was celebrating finally being allowed to drive the old Land Rover his father once used. After dinner he drove her home.

Often have a fantasy of living My Year of Rest and Relaxation and need to remind myself this is not an aspirational book.

The air between his boys started going bad, no matter how long they tried to leave the windows open. They were getting tired of the motels and their poolside women. There were only so many sun-bleached bitches they could do before his boys wanted more.

“What in the hell are you doing out here at this hour?” the security guard said. “Just taking a walk,” Price said. 

She springs up, goes to her page, and sees hardly any fans left. The next session has started, but there is no one left in the waiting room. The ones who stay spit insults. She reads them, feels hurt, so she gets no pleasure from it.

You looked exactly like you do now except you were wearing glasses and you looked distracted.

Charm cripples our capacity for effective criticism, our will to demand change.

People in Utah spoke about modesty constantly

Literary agent

Never had one. I don't know any of their names.

I drew different flowers on my skin using my brother’s scout knife like a brush, stroking my body into a life-sized artwork of unbearable physical and emotional damage.

Diabetic Ketoacidosis and Camus 

There is no flight from light, no  
solution to the absurd, when  
through the ghost we are revived— 
the shiny little sun-stars seeing out 
like a

Joseph was my internship advisor at a public access TV station in Berkeley

This party is great, Maria, it’s really something special. You said this to our host as if she were our friend. Really, we’d known Maria for fifteen minutes and you already wanted to get into bed with her. You wanted a ménage à trois. This sounded stupid and French, but I wanted to get in bed with her too. Though my version of events wouldn’t involve you.

I felt pitiful writing.