I didn’t mean to be mean
when I told Erika you probably don’t need sunglasses
with a forehead like that
I meant to be precise

I am projecting because I think my eyes stink

I mean sink
more each day
past my skull and inch toward my cerebrum

soon my eyes will be fully submerged

they will rotate 180
and I will see grey matter
dated and labeled
organized into
ascending
safes

Thanks For Everything, Plan B

the first bullet / i swallowed
/ in / that sixth floor / hotel room /
a cock / tail / of bicep & / bone
/ went down / smooth / as mini bar /
vodka / did not ask / my name
/ only if he could take / off /
his raincoat / only / if he could
/ come / inside / (yes / yes) /
the second / you / precious pearl
/ i cradled / in the back / pocket /
of my acid / wash / cutoffs
/ made the world feel / less /
like a waiting / room / less
/ like getting / your name /
called / but not / hearing / it
/ O / seed / of ungrowth / you /
must be / a woman / the way
/ you understand / empty /
how / you wreck / to protect
/ your no / your not / now /
at the ultralounge / after
/ sarah's abortion / she asked /
what / you taste like / nothing
/ futures / like the grass /
is greener / on every side

No Results Found

The barista at the shop with the most tolerable coffee

in town is like hi how are you? *wink* and I’m like idk

my sweater has a cupcake on it so good I guess 

and he’s like it also has a cherry on top *wink wink* 

Before turning on the grinder he says let me start her up 

do you want room for cream or should I fill it all the way? 

*WINKKK* and I really wish I jumped him

dark roasted his beans into a perfect shot of burn & choke 

like can’t a girl order a small blonde blend in peace? 

In case you were wondering the word for heaps 

of headless women falling spread-legged from a man’s maw 

is women. The word for keeping the knees of my mouth together 

like a good little bitch is also women is also Maybelline Baby Lips 

Moisturizing Lip Balm is also soft, pink, your steak cooked 

how you like it, bikini line waxed with obedience. 

Look up the word cunnilingus on thesaurus dot com 

and you will find

     no results found
     did you mean [        ]?

Today

i woke up & the sky was like wooooow congratulations
here’s a cloud that sort of looks like it’s spelling out snoop dogg.
today i dropped it like it was burning because it was.

today i watched a child wail at the grocery store
because he was too big to sit in the shopping cart
& i was like i know right? today i used a knife
to slice the hunger it was intended for & nothing else.
today my bills are past due. today i have a mailbox
for them to keep each other warm in. today you texted me
& i turned into the emoji with hearts for eyes.
today my heart has eyes and they are open.
today i turned down a street that shares my father’s name
& i’m sorry my heart had to see that. today
is his birthday but the candles are already blown out.
today i dumped salt into the bowl instead of sugar.
today the doctor made a list of options & none
of them included time. today whiskey. today tequila,
kahlúa, the nips in the trunk from new year’s eve.
today greg got so drunk he ordered a bud light
at the wendy's drive-thru. today we pulled forward
to the next window. today i’m not sure
what the weather forecast will be but there is one
so it’s not all darkness. today [insert uplifting quote
by “unknown” here]. today the light turned yellow
& i slowed down. today you said my name & i heard you.

Aliens Exist

I left my baby in the back of a Blink-182 song. If you looped and stretched a pop punk song like 80 times you could have a drone masterpiece. Every genre should have a drone counterpart. Books should, or they already did, and that's called conceptualism. Do you think Blink-182 is good horseback riding music though? I could canter. Explanation is information. Worshipper Rips Out Both Eyes In Mass With His BARE HANDS. My roommate hasn't paid the utility bill in 3 months and we've just been casting about with military-grade glowsticks. It's funny because it's true. You can see the neon from the outside. Maybe someone will think it's a signal. Are The Streets of Washington, D.C. Supposed To Form A Pentagram? I can feel the pendulum pitting my stomach. Hairline fractures are in style. I felt a jolt when I realized I was gonna look back on this as A Memory. then I skittered back into the warmdark haze. Aliens, those were one of Lisa Frank's motifs, right? Apart from everything else she excelled in making things outsize. I do, too. Aliens with sloth or gorilla eyes. Fear as a praxis. Fear as a mediating principle. Fear for president! NASA Whistleblower: Alien Moon Cities Exist. Did you say this was a no flex zone or a no fly zone? There is a finite amount of dust in the universe and you're just displacing it when you dust. Dust dust, lol. Nostalgia is a gauzy medium. Bad people who taught me good things. It's about having a worldview that internally justifies itself. Daisy-chaining your way into coherence. Malevolence is banal. How To Survive Falling From A Plane. How dare you detain my friend for wearing a Jenny Holzer t-shirt. He won't read this. I have sources from the government. I have informants wearing Big Dogs t-shirts. These Big Dog Colors Don't Run. My brain in an oil rig. One Nation Under Drones. Bring lawyers, guns, and money. Seriously, what the fuck is catnip. Who are we? Where are we going? How do we communicate with you? And yea, the gates of hell will slowly open, and who among you will consider yourself unfit to enter. FBI's Newest Gang Threat: Insane Clown Posse Fans. They place the conspiracy, just like 9/11. Quote from Blink-182 New Album 2014: "Tom cared more about searching for UFO's than making music with the world famous blink-182" (end quote). With the world famous blink-182. With the world-famous blink-182. Starcraft. Storycraft. Babycore. Decamp for Detroit. Can someone turn me into a building? Or a lunchbox? Please take this case more serious and stop being ignorant to the law of universe...this is a warning. I walked in the wrong direction once and got upset. To be sure, there are people with hobgoblins in their heads. Strange times, Mister Jones. Strange times indeed.

Passivity In The Face Of
with Dakota Parobek

The doors were thrown open
(I had never seen them like that)
I slid into the dirt
Slid out of your grasp
Remember the first time
you didn’t show up at something
that someone you cared about
cared about.
This fight is about
who gets to set the terms
of this fight.
Now, feel negligible.
Now, zero.
Listen,
our arms are a mirror image
of the other’s arms when
we put them around the other
and rub the shoulder blades
Now, our
arms are dressing room mirrors.
The steering wheel
rotates eight
thousand degrees and yr car
wins the fight w/ the tree. The car
wins the fight with the bike.
The road wins
the fight with
the wrist.

You are brütal.
:/
You are brütal.

(
I put an umlaut on the
U’s so you don’t know
I am fucking serious
I am a dressing room
clothing-hook
while curled gnawed bangs
& the hanger holds my face.
I am scared when I feel nothing
when you called me on the train.
)

Wounded
with Tracy Dimond

You have to capture the scene
before it slips back under concrete.
Here’s to strange rooms and blood
that sludges out with no place in mind.
It’ll teach you how to walk among
the basement dwellers; how to grab
at the unknowns with vigor; how to hold
together among the spider web cracks.
Today feels marigolds & daisies, baby.
Fits of citrus feeling, all uncut wood/
ungodly twinge—figure it out in the corners
of you. Keep saying your name into the mirror.
Summer socks hold nervous tapping,
you leave out my nickname.
I’m still counting the time as evidence
that we will walk into a room of butterflies.
Mariposa: your face slackens, molten gold mouth
spilling constancy. Show up burning,
or leave us with a spark.

Eulogy for a Friend by Howie Good

I was Googling how to write a resume when I learned that a friend had vanished, weighed down by her hair. At the memorial service her incomplete collection of state flowers was briefly on display. Music streamed from microcomputers hidden among the attendees. It must have been Bach, the palest blues sung by man. The eulogist, a horse-faced Brit with a plummy accent, recited eight explosive facts about orgasms. No one but me seemed to think it strange that beneath our chairs the rats just went on building their maze.

</br>

Urgent Care by Howie Good

The young X-ray tech wears her hair short like Joan of Arc. She says, "Just do what the machine says." Is this real? The machine says in not an impolite voice, "Breathe in and hold your breath." It’s precisely the sort of difficulty that appeals to generals and kings. Nearby but out of sight a woman meets the man who received her dead brother’s face. Oh, if only I could get a pretty accomplice to slip over the border with me!

blue jeans by Alexandra Naughton

sitting by the pool watching light bounce prisms crystal water making steam like space like i’d want to and you said but you want it too much like you like it like me like you like me and i was like of course like you like me like what ever and i know you it’s cool like you like me you know it’s like any thing and the pool filter started spitting

britomart by Alexandra Naughton

Roses and mirrors kept following her. Roses at her feet, roses on the neighboring steps, roses next to garbage. The mirror in her dreams, before it she twirled, but every omen was hazy. A tired mouth opening and closing. A mouth fruitlessly spitting out grains of sand.

I feel like a little boat beaten about by the sea, she said. She said this to herself a lot.

Thoughtful and sad as one should be. She could not sleep. It was a dreadful thing to love a shadow. She covered herself and wandered. Steeled from people asking questions.

She looked out at the road at the line where the sun passes that she was always heading toward and didn't know why. Careful of each step.

Then a stranger appeared down the road. Looking like an old tree all overgrown with moss decked with oak­-leaves.

The stranger stood and watched from a distance. He recognized her gait. The stranger had heard things. The stranger wanted to know for sure. He rushed at her and whispered in her ear. She withdrew and they fought. He fell.

Rise or I shall kill you, she said.

Grass trampled stained with blood. They smote and thrust and smote again. He gathered strength and struck a terrific blow. To kill her quite but it sheared the front of her helmet. Her face uncovered.

Her arm dropped. The sword fell from her hand. She tried to speak roughly to him. Her tongue would not say the words.

Hot and pink. And her hair. So long reached her feet. Burst from its band. Her face strewn like a golden frame.

They stayed. They were still.

They rested and their wounds healed until at last he could stay no longer silent.