unsure

2012-03-09T06:24:00.003-08:00

Spencer Madsen / three poems

today it sounds like everything you’ve ever said all at once

it sounds like a playground during recess

it sounds like children laughing and playing tag and falling and crying and holding hands and jumping rope and playing handgames and bullying each other and everyone wanting to go home

it sounds like the sounds outside your window

on your bed in the past

its funny, or maybe it isn’t

it was the kind of movie that gives away the end at the beginning

even though my mouth was the same mouth that had touched your mouth a thousand times

your eyes looked at my eyes and your eyes cried

we were so awake then

i don’t wonder anything, i see things and i process them at a delay

it snowed on halloween up here. did anyone tell you

so many branches fell because the leaves were still there

it was still so early, though it was late in the year

the trees couldn’t bear the weight of the snow

the leaves hurt them then

its even later as i write this; november is turning into december

which i would name a pet, if i had one

i will leave this city in the summer

im going to massachusetts for a while

i am sitting quietly in your suitcase

today everything is pale grays and gray-blues

the delay grows and i look south and i see beaches

i see beaches being built quietly on top of mountains

have you ever been rock climbing

tonight i will dream that we went rock climbing

you slipped and caught yourself

you let out a sigh of relief and looked at me

i smiled at you and then a car crashed

2012-02-22T09:37:00.000-08:00

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Gabby Gabby / It's too early to be alive.

2012-02-22T09:17:00.000-08:00

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Dave Shaw / five paintings

2012-02-22T09:13:00.000-08:00

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James Duncan / Picture 4.png

2012-02-22T09:10:00.000-08:00

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Frances Dinger / Stranger Danger

At nine in the morning on Monday, there were six young men in black jackets and red hats standing on the corner. One of them said something about telling some sonofabitch something or other, another responded loudly, “Damn, son. Damn, son,” in a tone of approval.

Susan never thought about gang activity happening at nine in the morning. Someone, popular media perhaps, had convinced her that all gang activity happened late at night or in the very early pre-dawn hours of the morning. She wondered what time gang members woke up in the morning. Did they have staff meetings to start the day like she sometimes did? She imagined the boys waking up to cell phone alarm clocks, pulling on sweatshirts and do-rags like uniforms, garb of the trade. Did the leader kiss his girlfriend and their baby goodbye before leaving? Did he list himself as “self-employed” on his taxes? At gang initiations, did hazing act as a contract, ensuring a group health plan, protection on the streets? She knew about hazing. She had seen documentaries and news specials. She tried to feel a little pity for every young man she suspected of being part of a gang, those young men who probably knew the horror of gang rape or severe beating. What about abuse kindles love or loyalty in a person? She felt this experience gave them a kind of femininity, that vulnerability of being bent over and taken advantage of. She herself had never been abused like that but had lived with fear in her since she was young.

As she was cooking her eggs one of the boys started yelling about something but she couldn’t tell about what over the drone of the Today Show. It seemed that gang bangers felt emotion more deeply than her ex-husband. It seemed biblical, the way they tore at each other’s clothes and abused each other to send messages to other groups. It seemed to her that it would take a lot of passion to kill a person. There was a kind of release in taking a feeling to its furthest consequence. She wanted to feel something that deeply.

Susan didn’t have to be at work until noon and by then the possible gang bangers had moved off of the corner. The neighborhood was quiet again. Susan said, “Shut up, you bitch,” to the anchor on TV before shutting it off. She put on her stockings and loafers and left for work.

After work, she went out to a bar with some co-workers who offered varied platitudes about her divorce ranging from condolence to congratulations. One of her co-workers hadn’t heard about the divorce and asked if her husband would be joining them. She heard a program on NPR awhile ago about a reformed gang banger who turned to Jesus but his gang’s old enemies still approached him sometimes and he had to explain he wasn’t a “Street King” anymore. Susan thought about the ownership implicit in terms “Street King” and “husband.”

Susan left the bar alone after having three pink drinks. She remembered she needed groceries and hurried to a 24-hour grocery store a few blocks away, trying to remember how many eggs she had left in the fridge, considered how she could carry her groceries and still have access to the pepper spray in her purse. The drinks were in her blood and had carried clumsiness and fear with them.

When walking home alone late at night, Susan was perhaps overly cautious. When she set her new year’s resolutions every January, “not get mugged” always made the list. Over the years, she had evaluated careful criteria for when she would cross the street and when she would not. If a group of more than two men were walking toward her, she crossed the street no matter what their race was, just to be safe.

Around Halloween, a group of eight men, almost all over six feet tall, beckoned her to come walk with them on the other side of the street, which seemed to validate her caution. She did not cross to see them. They were walking in the same direction as her so she abruptly turned a corner and hid in a bush until they were two blocks ahead of her.

Monday night, a group of four walked on the same side of the street, coming toward her. She did not cross the street. Both men in the group were particularly scrawny and the girls were both text messaging on their iPhones, and thus, Susan judged, were more vulnerable than she because they outwardly showed they had something of value, something that would make the trouble of theft worthwhile.

A few blocks later, the young men who loitered on her corner in the morning walked toward her. She thought about waving but, laden with groceries, she could not. She wondered if they recognized her as she recognized them. She wondered if these boys had ever seen her exposed ass in the morning when she was getting dressed. She often forgot to close her blinds and these boys had long been using her corner to convene.

There was an evening in summer when, after a shower, she was binge eating in the kitchen, hand buried deep in a bag of potato chips. The towel corner did not stay tucked under her arm and her covering fell to the kitchen floor but she continued to eat. When she was putting the chips away, she noticed a group of men gathered on the sidewalk. Five or so of them. She was not wearing her glasses so she could not say with total certainty that they had been watching her but their face shapes appeared to be facing her window. She wondered what her breast shapes looked like from that far below and hid behind the refrigerator.

Had she turned these boys into predators?

Susan straightened her posture and tried to look steadily ahead. Her loafers caught in a crack in the sidewalk and she tripped. Susan dropped the gallon jug of milk she carried in her right hand. It clunked on the sidewalk. One of the young men in red hats bent down, picked it up and handed it to her.

The boys parted around her in two groups equal in number and rejoined once they passed behind her. Susan watched them until they reached the end of the block and went home.

2012-02-22T09:08:00.000-08:00

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Stacey Teague / 61

love is an idea that you came up with

over your morning coffee

you come up to me and say

"have you ever heard of this thing called love?"

and place your hand in the small of my back

pulling me towards you in a way that seems intuitive

like the way a river flows

i imagine that gravity didn't exist until you pulled me in your direction

you ask if we can slow dance in the middle of our living room

and i just laugh

and repeat the word 'dance' in your accent

it's "dance" not "dance"

i look at you with eyes that convey "hehe"

i make fun of the way you dance

i make fun of the way you love

2012-02-22T09:05:00.000-08:00

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C. P. Harrison / Here is a Letter

There was no instability about him. Here is a letter.

there is no séance here , there is nothing to see

there are bats under our bridges, but there is nothing to see

there is no gloom or doom, just a murder or two

There are things people assume are bad

but there is nothing for you to envy

there's a lot more bats out here than people

2012-02-22T09:01:00.000-08:00

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Kit Walsh / three poems

Kickflip My Heart

the best skateboard trick i ever landed

was getting hit by a car

i came to

all i could hear was your sister

“MY DOG OMG MY DOG MY DOG”

and then

“oh it’s just Chris”

Pucker Up and Kiss the Asphalt Now

i’m a bubble of air

that rises 2 the surface of a river of lava

and pops

i wanna dip my face in

ur spit

melts away all the unimportant parts of my face

til there is nothing left

and then you kiss me

after i am gone

Lost Bros

In the morning

An old man takes his razor

And carefully slices at his face

From the chin up stopping

Above his eyebrows

Later at work

Santa Claus says

“Watch this kid!”

And peels away his face

Revealing the tissue surrounding his skull

In that same mall

The Easter Bunny asks

“Wanna see a trick?”

Then blows his brains out

And I wish I was one of those kids

So I could blame that on why I am the way I am

But I’m not

You’re my best friend

When I told you that my grandpa died

You laughed

And then I laughed

We get each other

Even though we don’t get it

Everything you put into your body

Is a ticket

And you’re the vehicle

Departing

Please come back

So we can make disturbing jokes

When we are old and desperate

Working the holidays

At the local mall

2012-02-22T08:56:00.000-08:00

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Patrick Hinea / this is not a cycle

i stand in an attic with empty paint buckets surrounding me

i have painted my face

i have painted my body

i have painted my whole self

i have been golden since all my paint has chipped off

2012-02-05T12:08:00.000-08:00

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Justin Carter / the earth is maybe a cold dead place

the wind is cold

your father drinks malt liquor

love me love me love me

2012-02-05T12:03:00.000-08:00

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Carolyn DeCarlo / spill

2012-02-05T11:55:00.000-08:00

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Samuel Riviere / PERSONAL AD

2011-06-29T11:05:00.000-07:00

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Richard Chiem / Film Studies (Reading Beauty Talk & Monsters)

Tell me the rest of the story that goes with the picture.
THE BROOD (1979)

1
When I first came across BEAUTY TALK & MONSTERS, I was dating someone who hated David Cronenberg. I remember she said she liked me for my collarbones and I thought that was an intimate thing for her to say. I was immediately taken with her and would plan outings in my head or little dates we could go on. I was distracted with what could happen. My body moved with my schedule from class to class to work, anticipating a quiet moment with her. She had made me apple pie and loved to wrap her food inside aluminum foil. I rented A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE and picked up an eighth from my dealer, and she showed up at my door with a slim outfit leather boots and low hanging ear rings. She wore a red dress underneath her jacket. She drove a white pick up truck and listened to GOBLIN and then introduced me to GOBLIN. The way she spoke about music made her seem like a cliche, like she could see the stars through my ceiling because of a song playing.

Before the last shot in A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, I remember Jackie having a very disturbed look on her face. When I saw her discontent and her bothered posture, I could feel myself too retreating and I wondered if I was too transparent with how far away we were on the couch. We talked about nothing avoiding the film. Eventually she admitted she hated everything. Jackie’s head would tilt in this way when she did not want to talk about something. She would play with her hair when she ignored something. Our next date we would watch THE BROOD. Jackie would brush the bangs out of her eyes in subtle ways and want more out of me.

2
I walked over the general store where Jackie worked to buy Advil because the price was only fifty cents for two tablets. I liked being undercover to talk to her. The real affection happened between us during eye contact. She would bend her knees on a tall stool and stare back at me everyday. My friends said she was a gypsy girl. She wore short shorts and baggy flannels. I would take my time at the registers while she looked for ways to stall me there, often asking me if I was too stressed out about life. Everyone who worked there thought I suffered from chronic headaches. I felt like she touched my skin because she was part of my everyday life. We would often run into each other because we worked next door to each other. I wanted to take her behind a statue and hide from public and be mischievous with her in natural light behind the statue. She told me about a book written by Masha Tupitsyn and dated me for two months exactly. I loved the book.

2011-06-29T10:55:00.000-07:00

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Sara McGrath / please call me

2011-06-13T14:26:00.000-07:00

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Stephen Tully Dierks and Steve Roggenbuck / [Poem from I LOVE MUSIC]

broteus,

i was thinking

when i think about you, i honestly feel better about everything bro

like

your presence to me is like running 10 miles, slowly eating a delicious salad, or doing crunches until my abs ache and i experience a hard-earned euphoria

bro...

i was experiencing neggy vibes/energy this morning... via shit-talkers... via not knowing what to do about girls.... via "what is life"/"does everything suck"...

and i thought of you bro
.
and instructed myself to be as the water that ripples

bro...

magic city
stacks of chips
"life's a gamble" - lil weezyana

bro, ur message comes to me as a great refrain of luv and life

thank you

2011-06-01T13:01:00.000-07:00

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Blake West / suicide methods (1, 2, 666)

i am going to make a list
of everything i love
you will be the only
thing on it

i haven’t been eating,
not at all
(i just lied)

but only things with mass amounts of sugar
and boxes of spent parliament lights
after i smoke all twenty
in rapid succession

tonight, after work, i am going
to drive to huntington beach and
walk into the ocean

fully clothed, wearing the jean jacket
you gave me
so i sink faster
(i lied again)

i’m not going to do that
but only because
i don’t have gas money

i can do anything i want
no one can stop me
(i lied)

fuck everything

2011-05-26T13:37:00.000-07:00

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Poncho Peligroso / I CANNOT COME TO THE PHONE RIGHT NOW

i ride my bike through flowers towards the lake
my head has been colder since my hat was stolen
my feet have been colder since my shoes were stolen
i have been colder since my clothes were stolen

i stand naked in water under the sky

2011-03-30T08:18:00.000-07:00

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Alice May Connolly / three poems

Alice will you lock this front door when I leave?

No one is going to break into a house up a long, shared driveway while there is obviously someone home.
Have some faith
George Michael.

You're so far away

You think that you aren't perfect sometimes
In hindsight that's probably a good thing
(even though you are).
When you can't do things because of some inability to face delusional self-opinions
I don't know what to do.
It makes me angry that I can't help you.
I'm selfish.

Valentines Day

Eating pizza and chips
Sitting on diagonals
Disagreeing about cafés.
Sometimes I wonder if we should agree about stuff more
Or if it's better this way?
Like, we match because we don't.
Shit, I don't know.
There is a sinking feeling in my stomach.
I got a contraceptive surgically implanted in my arm yesterday that lasts five years
I love you.

2011-03-22T08:35:00.000-07:00

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Madison Langston / lololololol

sometimes when i'm feeling
restless i listen to 'are you strong
enough to be my man' by
sheryl crow and imagine being
both the accordion she's playing
and an accordion she's never played
but would if given the opportunity

i feel nervous when people see me
on facebook in the library and i always
imagine telling them i'm not
'stalking' or anything like that

and sometimes i listen
to 'underneath your clothes'
by shakira or google
'gwen stefani 1992' because the way
her skin stretches over her stomach
makes me feel calm for
at least ~2-3 minutes

sometimes i just listen to bone
thugs n harmony and stare
at a blank document on microsoft
word and i feel totally fucked
or something really similar

2011-03-16T14:39:00.000-07:00

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Matthew Savoca / poem

the morning was chilly and good

i hid under the deck

while the neighbor's dog

tried to rat me out!

i shushed him in my mind

but it didn't work

i think a deer was frightened

it was that early

i was just hanging out

feeling really impressed with my love

look how many friends she has

how many lovers

she is always going out for drinks with someone

there's music playing, and good lighting

it's really impressive, look at me

i don't like any of my friends

none of them drink

and the ones that do, i can't talk to

i am so impressed with her

the way she claims the sidewalk

her legs owning everything

as she stops to pet tiny dogs

and her ass hangs in the air, owning that

i watch the people watching her

as she moves up the street

there are so many puppies in new york

but her love changes

and it's changed for me now

she no longer rushes home

2011-03-14T10:32:00.000-07:00

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Brittany Hallmark / "War Memorial". 2009.

2011-03-09T10:23:00.000-08:00

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Adam Moorad / four poems

skunk dog (a monologue)

wow
you need to get out of the city sometime
haha
funny story though
this dog that lives at our farm
got sprayed by a skunk during the night
well
at 4:30 in morning
i was just thinking it was the dog
so i get up in my tree stand
and realized that little shit slept on my boots
so there i'm sitting in a tree at 4:30 in the morning
with fucking boots that smell like a skunk
and if it wasn't for my cousin
i was on my way back to the house
to shoot that dog

(no subject)

i made a microsoft paint image
of the statue of liberty
stabbing things with blades
shaped like the wtc towers

i think it’s political enough for huffington post to link it

Sent from my iPhone

petrified wood (LLC)

petrified wood is cut to look like desert
dust sprinkles powder stone in my eyes
and i begin thinking, i can't see nothing
or something good enough to not see
like a zombie, I keep whiffing augers
grinding petrified wood dust powder
in a lonesome tennessee warehouse
which is kind of a funny abstraction
the building looks like a mangled truck
that hydroplaned on black ice off I-40
when people see it they think of lost time

BQE colloquy

don’t touch my neck with your scissors
what the hell are you doing?
what the hell did you just do?
you touch like an archangel
and i’m falling asleep now
with holes in my throat
and i will soon be pale all the time
and i will have nothing to say again
my eyes shut
uh huh
and it hurts
but you know
i’d rather be dead/deaf
than have your voice in my head
forever

2011-03-03T08:45:00.000-08:00

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Mario Russeau / LIL ROMEO.gif

2011-03-01T06:49:00.000-08:00

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DJ Berndt / DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT (A LOVE POEM)

traumatized
translating significant moments
of my adult life
into simple,
common phrases:

An authority figure
explaining to me
how sobriety and hygiene
go hand-in-hand.

______two birds with one stone

A sunny Sunday evening
out back on the hammock
still struggling
because of a photo
seen that morning.

______quality over quantity

Realizing that every
orgasm from me
was just a side effect
of a human being
trying to hide inside
another.

______you never know what you have until it’s gone

2011-02-22T07:44:00.000-08:00

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Steve Roggenbuck / two poems

i set my top goals for 2007 in december and have already gotten off to a good start on working towards them

its all good and well to write out your goals, but you have to do something to keep yourself motivated and ensure you are on track the whole year long

how will i do that?

weekly goal meetings with my wife

the short but powerful guide to finding your passion

first off, i hope you follow this guide and find success

i wish you nothing less than finding your true passion

following your passion can be a tough thing

but figuring out what that passion is can be even more elusive

im feeling this, baby!

2011-02-15T07:16:00.001-08:00

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Andrew Worthington / TWO POEMS USING WORDS STOLEN FROM OTHER WORKS

WORK TIME

It sails below the earth

in the opposite direction

a single time

it is easy enough to overlook its heterogeneous nature

suggested or inspired by mirrors

this body was neither visible nor tangible

Descartes tells us that monkeys could talk if they wanted to

But they have decided to keep silent so that humans will not force them to work

WE NEED BETTER WAYS TO KILL PEOPLE

As the war ended the enemy changed
What would we expect to find in such a map?
The military has imposed its own traffic flows on the turbulent energies of the machinic phylum
to transport energy from higher to lower scales
Made in a 1984 document entitled “Strategic Computing”
it confirms the success of the approach based on a dispersal of uncertainty
throughout a command system
clockwork armies
great individual initiative reduced to zero
cybernetic technology proved that some soldiers could be taken out of the decision-making loop
Turing realized that programs that change themselves could be written, and this would allow them to surrender control to a subprogram
rewriting themselves
There are certain zones on the surface of the planet so devoid of water and other natural resources that even primitive forms of life seem impossible
But the same areas form an obstacle
Capturing the machine
whether logically or physically
gives one access to the enciphering method
But as we saw
the most important step is the keys
used for a particular batch of communication traffic

2011-02-15T07:13:00.000-08:00

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Andrew Worthington / TWO POEMS USING WORDS STOLEN FROM OTHER WORKS

WORK TIME

It sails below the earth

in the opposite direction

a single time

it is easy enough to overlook its heterogeneous nature

suggested or inspired by mirrors

this body was neither visible nor tangible

Descartes tells us that monkeys could talk if they wanted to

But they have decided to keep silent so that humans will not force them to work

2011-02-08T09:50:00.000-08:00

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Stephen Tully Dierks / What the Fuck Does “In Real Life” Mean If You Live In Front of Your Computer?

I can refer to him as Daniel or I or whatever, the choice is in my hands, I’m typing, I didn’t get much sleep tonight, do you have any resolutions for 2011, mine was to not sleep, actually that’s not true, but I could supply a cliché, but I won’t, it involves death, and sleeping once that’s happened, I said to Clara, “I feel like you could be Aaliyah. Or a member of TLC.” “Yes,” said Clara, “I could be Left Eye…and die in a tragic car accident.” “Nooo!” I said, she said, “I could be Aaliyah…and die in a tragic airplane accident.” “Nooo!” I said. “What I mean is, you’d look good in baggy pants and a crop top, or something.” “Is that your penis?” I said. “Lol…what?” she said. I said, “Your penis, no, the Twitter account, ‘@_penis_,’ is that you?” “No,” she said, “That’s not my penis, lol…” “Listening to ‘Oops (Oh My)’ on repeat,” Clara said. “This is the remix with Fabolous,” she said. “’I strictly want to spank you,’” I said, “Sweet. Good job, Fabo,” I said. “Is it wrong if I really want to spank a girl’s ass right now?” “No,” Clara said, “that is not wrong.”

“I thought you were just playing with me,” I said, later that night. “Like just as a friend. I thought the other part was only in my head.” “I think it was like that, but then something happened, I don’t know,” Clara said, I felt good inside, I wanted to kiss her and have her face be close to my face for an indeterminate amount of time, I didn’t know what to say, everything seemed more exciting, life is so stupid and exciting, yes, and then more exciting, like the game has become a ceremony. “Listening to Beach House,” she said, “’Silver Soul,’” she said, “hula hoops forever.” “I love this song/video,” I said. “Wow,” I said, “look at 2:30, it shows a woman’s butt and then the word ‘FUCK’ in big letters on the wall.” “I never noticed that,” she said. “Even more cool points for this video,” I said, “Yes,” she said, “This video is cool,” she said, “This video is pretty hot,” I said, I said, “I would like to see you,” she said, “I would like that too,” I said, “You are very beautiful, and I’m sure you’re very hot in person, but I just love how you are and it’s almost like you could look however and I would kind of love you or something, you know, if that’s OK to say. I don’t mean to be weird,” “You’re never weird,” she said.

I felt like a child who’s seen another child on the playground, and they ignore the other children, chase each other around the jungle gym all morning and color pictures together all afternoon. I knew she was better at coloring, and I was better at chasing. I didn’t know about bugs, and she had never sat still with her eyes closed on the grass beneath the elm tree, so he could show her his spot on the grass, and she could show him the bugs.

2011-02-01T14:46:00.000-08:00

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Rhett Brinkley /

Sitting at the airport waiting to board. There’s a guy wandering around talking on a blue tooth, hands on his hip. I would feel like an idiot walking around a lobby talking to myself. He’s talking business so he looks as if he’s addressing a board room. By the looks of this guy, I think he actually likes what he’s doing right now. There’s a teenage girl sitting on the floor with two different colored band-aids under her eyes. I have no idea what that’s about. Purple and green. Maybe she’s a softball player. Blue tooth man is texting now. There are special cell phone charging stations at airports now. Looking around I see 9 people using cell phones. I forgot to clip my fingernails this morning. They look shitty. Katherine and Lizzie gave me a ride to the airport. I was paranoid they were going to walk into my room and see the mess of beer bottles and empty cigarette packs. I feel like a piece of shit. A woman sitting next to me just laughed at the blue tooth man because he’s talking to himself again.

On the plane I almost had a panic attack because I felt claustrophobic. I shut my eyes real tight and breathed deeply until I fell asleep. It was horrible. I wanted to freak out. I wanted to start screaming. It’s weird. I’ve been on so many flights and that’s never happened to me before. I hope it doesn’t happen again.

Mom and Lance picked me up from the airport. Lance was already sitting in the back of the car. Mom started filling me in on all the new family drama. I don’t have the energy to write any of it down. Family drama is so annoying because normally it stems from stubbornness or cowardice. People should grow up when it comes to their own family.

Mom told me that she just went to one of my distant cousins’ wedding that I’m supposed to know but I don’t have any idea who he is. I didn’t tell Mom that.

“They only knew each other for two weeks before they got married,” said Mom.

“You’re kidding.”

“No.”

“Were they on some kind of wedding deadline? Like if they weren’t married by 27 they’d marry their high school sweetheart or the next person they stood in line behind at the grocery store?” I asked.

“Eli, stop being ridiculous. I know you just got off the plane and you’re grumpy, but we’re talking about one of your cousins.”

“I wouldn’t go to a wedding for a couple that’s only been together for two weeks,” said Lance.

“What if one of your good friends was getting married? You just wouldn’t go?” said Mom.

“I’d tell them they’re wasting my time and everyone else’s. I’m serious,” said Lance. I started laughing and my Mom gave me a dirty look.

“When and why did you guys become so cynical?”

“I don’t think I’m being cynical to question getting married after only knowing someone for two weeks,” I said.

“There’s no time limit for falling in love. I hope you realize that one day.”

“So it could happen in a day? On first sight?”

“I think so.”

“You’ve seen too many romantic comedies.”

“Eli, what’s your problem? Don’t talk to me like I’m stupid.”

“I’m not. I’m sorry. I just think that getting married after two weeks of being together is really stupid. What’s the rush? It’s selfish of them to invite a bunch of family and friends that have to travel to see them get married. If you’re getting married to a person after knowing them for two weeks it seems like you should just leave everyone out of it.”

“Mom, do you think it’ll last?” said Lance.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“Well the odds aren’t in their favor,” said Lance. The divorce rate…”

“Lance, I don’t want to hear it. They’ve got just as good a chance as anyone else,” said Mom. I looked at my Mom and felt bad.

“You’re right Mom. They do have just as good a chance as anyone else,” I said.

“Just under fifty percent,” said Lance.

“You guys have terrible attitudes. I hope you enjoy loneliness because if you guys keep it up you are both going to be in your forties and single sitting at some bar with a bunch of other lonely single guys flirting with young waitresses that don’t really give a damn about you.” Lance and I didn’t really didn’t have a comeback for that one. I think Lance said “Jesus, Mom,” but that’s all he could muster up. My Mom definitely listens to me when I bitch about my job and she threw it right back in my face.

At Thanksgiving dinner one of my aunts said Grace. She named things she was thankful for. Lance laughed out loud when she said she was thankful for facebook for bringing her and some of her old high school friends back together again.

2011-01-24T17:31:00.000-08:00

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Joe Martin / two poems

I Would Fuck A Girl From Chernobyl

Just to give it a try
She would be glowing
She would be green and her hair would be gone
Our children would be named Pauly D and The Situation
And other catty pop culture references
And if you are a beautiful person fifteen years from when I wrote this poem
And you are confused by who(or maybe what) I am talking about
The Situation will be the guy who just died from drinking too much Red Bull
Snookie will be the orange woman selling you diabetes medication
During the commercials of the national news
The news then will have headlines like
The middle east is totally sweet or maybe
Russian’s dicks. Are they really bigger than ours?
Yes America they are and it’s because you eat chemicals
That hamburger the whopper or whatever that isn’t beef
It’s fucking pesticide
You eat poison and smile
With the beef coming out between your teeth America
Please come with me to a field somewhere
And we will eat a cow while it breathes
Just to show you how beautiful the world can be
Inside our collective brains we will be thinking about issues
That are too complex for the cow to understand
And that is why it is alright for us to eat the cow
Because he can’t understand us
But we can understand each other

Sometimes I Feel Shriveled Pieces Of My Brain Fall Down My Throat

Like spasmodic little sequences where different parts of it(my brain)
Fall down my throat into my stomach
Where they are slowly dissolved
They learn how to speak while they dissolve
And warn my stomach about my diet
My stomach becomes anxious
And pushes against my skin and ribs trying to escape
It detaches from my intestines
Causing my intestines to scream and burp blood and bile
My eyes catch a glimpse of my brain falling
And get out of my head quick as possible
Leaving perpetually screaming holes in my face
My ribs splinter in every direction and pierce my lungs
Who then wrap around my heart and stop the blood flow
To the rest of my body
My lips and toes turn blue
And my fingers fling gang signs out at a frantic pace
And my skin tears open as my skeleton runs away from me
As I fall apart and my skin flaps open
Blood and viscera around me
I think the phrase “fucking metal”
And feel content

2011-01-20T12:54:00.000-08:00

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Cody Troyan / Casual Relationships

Can you feel adrift like the tortoise or feel fast like the hare without someone tousling your hair on a basement futon. Can you really be hallowed by songs that don't realize their own delusions. Is it possible to feel content at any given moment when that moment isn't worth giving. I'm looking at this pink plate that she left the narrator to clean up. I'm looking and looking. I'm looking at this v-neck t-shirt that smells like her that smells like her mom who at one point was synonymous in autonomy, being, and smell with her. Your mother's chalice. Can a chain be broken by simply disbanding narrative. Why oh why does the red dog cry when the blue dogs are the ones supposed to be weeping. And how low can the white man go with ship full of cargo dead or sleeping. How now does the brown cow drip when its nips are one with a vacuum. If I had a tail it would not wag, if I were an economy I'd always flag, and she would be my Betsy Ross. She is the literal attachment to my poor metaphors that makes them humorous. Deadpan. Lively griddle. Frying bacon and eggs on the sidewalk chalk leaves the children deprived of art but belly up in grease. These children are rolled down the street like the peddling grease-balls their parents have unknowingly caused them to be. I can't say that. I could never say that unless there was control treatment, because observational studies only show casual relationships, like me and you. Hopelessly casual. Hopelessly lounging.

When is it okay to stand up from your plastic chair, throw your phone against the calm periwinkle walls, strip down naked, and scream "Fuck James Fenimore Cooper!"

When will I fulfill my responsibilities like they are actually and undeniably my responsibilities. What time was it that day when I was seven years old and rode my bike as fast as I could around the court until I hit uneven sidewalk, flew, and landed a front-flip. When will the next front-flip occur. Something makes me think it will happen while I'm going slow but swinging wide.

Is there a point, as in geographically, culturally, socially, and thematically, where nations aren't the cool thing to do. Is life bleak or do rods and cones not really care about what we see. I see the light means you saw the colors which means you're being tricked by prisms which means you're an algorithm who has the means of knowing it's only an algorithm but doesn't care to acknowledge it's existence as an algorithm. If that isn't bleak—

The mother of holism says sanctity lies in the realm of simplicity:

If you have to ask, she says, then the answer is probably no.

Now, when are we seeing that movie?

2011-01-10T09:49:00.000-08:00

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Richard Chiem / he watches a girl in the window walk away for a long time and imagines his wife or Greta Gerwig

a city girl. she wants to survive with him. /

she forgets how much cigarettes can pump / or quicken the pace of her heartbeat. sometimes she knows she can be loved and lets go of the light when she closes her eyes, she says, a sensation like pouring sand down a funnel made of your very soft places. today she makes a grimace in the rain in all the glass windows because she has forgotten her beautiful umbrella at home / the stupid lost and found wretched umbrella. she realizes she is going to be okay in life listening to the radio and RANCID albums on tape. she laughs hysterically with her entire body / crossing the street away from the grocery store and neon light bulbs. there are people passing like parades and faces and tattoos in all directions. she looks astonished downtown walking in a crowd and low fog like a fish when a fish first discovers water. there is so much more to have in life now than swimming even among the other fishes. there is something that belongs to her up ahead if she keeps walking and remains curious.

she is looking for her man. / the air is heavy with fog.

when she crosses the crosswalk / when the lamppost chirps like a bird and counts down from ten, she believes she is cheating a bomb threat when she makes it to the other side. the traffic calmly turns and yields. she wonders what would happen one day when the streets do explode. she likes thinking she can love a total stranger given a few minutes notice and the world’s ending. can she make love on the street with a boy with no name / a bald head / on the street while everyone else is panicking in terrible ways rushing to cross the street trying to get home. she plays with her blond dirty hair and waits to cross. she imagines people on fire.

she worries about her heart and lungs and ribcage. she decides to a take bath when she arrives at his place. she is looking for her man / she closes her eyelids and lets go of the light like she did before, becoming fragile and barely lucid in the back of her mind, she is imagining she is a barely a muscle back there.

ever have those days where you’re just completely lost / she says, the best times in life are those animal ones, with faint running tears and saliva. she thinks, the best dreams are when you wake and discover you have been drooling this whole time on your pillow. she cries inconsolably eating a cheeseburger downstairs mad or mesmerized in the kitchen without napkins. but no one can take this away from her, the knife like way the burger dissolves and makes her feel heavy beneath her flat stomach.

when she feels fat a few weeks later, she will feel miserable. when she runs a dozen miles a few weeks later, she will feel miserable. somehow today and all today, she feels like a goddess with her cheeseburger and listening to her folk music. she says, when her man unlocks the door and comes home from work, WE ARE YOUNG AND POOR AND LONELY AND WE HAVE DREAMS YOU CANNOT IMAGINE. / she says, YEAH I FUCKING SAID IT. MALCOLM X

2011-01-10T09:32:00.000-08:00

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Craig Rathgeber /

2011-01-05T11:38:00.000-08:00

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Poncho Peligroso / you goddamn motherfucker i'll fucking murder you if you look at me with that fucking shitty look of throwaway momentary regret or disappointment or love or whatever it is that your face says when you look at me which is something along the lines of 'i wish you'd stop looking at me like that because it makes me want to look at you like that but i can't do that so instead i'm going to look surprised and say something funny before i start crying uncontrollably' you beautiful piece of shit boy who's too smart for his own good and extremely insecure and projects an unnatural swagger to overcompensate and seduce women routinely not as a matter of real attraction or sexual need but as a brief respite from the pain of being yourself (brought about by amplification of emotional pain from your past brought on by a combination of the aforementioned insecurity (in turn perhaps brought about by your mother's adrenal gland tumor which went undiagnosed until your late teens by which point she had already established a history of disproportionate and seemingly unjustified bursts of anger), rejection brought about by your mistakes, and your overanalytical nature (brought about by both of your parents being analysts)) which is a sharp and constant pain that you try to mitigate by not just detaching from reality but also by making abstractions and ideas your playthings and immersing yourself in the world of the mind (solely on an intellectual and academic level and not on an emotional level even though emotions are part of the mind as you well know because you pursue this largely to sublimate your feelings into systems that you feel you can order and justify) and the minds of others (processing their emotions on the same intellectual level as you do other abstract concepts in a way that frequently results in you seeming to treat other human beings as gatherings of concepts or extremely complex algorithms (which you seem to see as subroutines of a kind within the extremely complex teleological arguments you make for the audience of yourself in a bid to convince yourself that some greater abstract meaning excuses your behavior) instead of human beings with independent agency that are ends in and of themselves instead of means to an end) as an attempt to escape yourself because you are terrified of intimacy, hate yourself, and are unwilling to get close to people you really care about for fear of hurting them the same way you have to the few people you've ever been really, really close to (which is funny because you've said out loud "I totally am [a closeted homosexual]" and "I'll [have sex with men] but not men I like because it ruins relationships, it's just a fact. I won't have sex with my friends. Unless they're girls." demonstrating an inability to understand that it is not sex that ruins relationships, but being a selfish, anti-empathetic asshole (inextricable concepts for you)) and it's hard to see you a lot of the time not just for how you act towards myself and others but for how you act as 'you' by coming into every conversation with your guard up and ready to attack just so you don't have to demonstrate your (massive, character-defining) weakness (which (has been exacerbated since i met you because i know you value your intellect above all else but have been feeling weaker ever since your unexplained five-hour grand mal seizure in the summer of 2008 that has had a noticeable effect on your cognitive ability and shattered your sense of adolescent invincibility and thus increased your baseline levels of The Fear and thus your abrasive overcompensation) is the only part of you that has ever seemed to result in honesty (in a few beautiful moments where you gave up and sat in wide-eyed shock and i watched those wide eyes then fill with tears as you began to scream (and i began to scream and we looked each other in the eyes and we were looking in each other's eyes and were both screaming) ) so suck my dick because you don't realize that telling someone you love them isn't an apology but can instead make something hurt worse when said immediately after performing an action that seems to be how one would treat someone you do not love but are indifferent to and

i love you so much
i could tell you
you could believe me

you tell me you love me
every day
i reciprocate

you could tell me again
you could look me in the eye

if you could look me in the eye

2011-01-03T13:02:00.000-08:00

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Jordan Castro / poem i wrote while pooping at your house after eating an entire box of vegan chicken nuggets then edited a little later while listening to you guitar solo

i feel like the back of my head is being stabbed repeatedly by little knives that are already inside of my head

and i feel like this could last for any amount of time

i feel physical and mental weakness like i’d imagine a lizard feels in the middle of january or july

i feel like a lizard

i feel warmth in my face and it feels like a fever or like something else shitty; a perverted uncle; an unwelcome guest at a party intended for close friends; a friend

i feel like my throat is the hamster cage at ‘pet smart,’ all hamster cages, all cages and there exists only throat lozenges and drugs to temporarily divert attention

i feel like all things exist in an effort to temporarily divert attention

i feel like adderall is the version of me that should be talking to other people and alcohol is the version of me that should be killing other people

in an effort to temporarily divert attention
i will write this poem and read it with a facial expression
and touch my moustache
and move words around

i feel like shit

i feel like my skull is a zoo and the animals are loose because the zookeeper of my brain thought it’d be a good idea to let them out but is only now realizing that they will trample him and end up dying in ways like being hit by cars, starving and eating each other

i feel like a more belligerent version of myself, thinking of similes to convey something

i just thought of a novel called ‘the hangover’ in a manner like i could write a novel called ‘the hangover’ then remembered the movie ‘the hangover’ and felt something like a puddle, i think

2011-01-03T12:20:00.001-08:00

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Blake West / MICHELE PT. 2

It is winter—

You stand beneath a
dead tree,
holding no one’s hand
and a bag of cocaine

While watching you—
I
want to put your face
on graph paper,
so I know where
everything lays
I do not want to neglect
You
any longer—

Still eyes
Empty hands
Empty corners
This is not a poem

It is winter—

You stand beneath a
dead tree,
holding no one’s hand

I want your haunted mansion...

I want your sunken
eyes

You are my haunted mansion
You are my sunken
eyes

2011-01-03T12:19:00.001-08:00

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Sara McGrath / my pot smoking trajectory

i have been smoking pot on a fairly consistent basis since i was fifteen years old.

i'm twenty now.

the first time

the first time i tried it i was drunk in a park. someone handed me a water bottle fashioned as a pipe. i was told to hold it in my lungs as long as i could.

even then i expressed worry about the plastic particles.

i said, "this seems bad," but received encouraging comments from my peers. i don't think i got high. i was too drunk off vodka, also from a plastic bottle. i also tried to smoke a cigarette that night for the first time. it hurt and i was told to hold it in my lungs as long as i could, which i now think is bad advice. i didn't like it then and i don't like it now, but that's another story.

the first time, pt II

the first time i actually got really high was halloween 2005. it was probably my last time trick or treating, and maybe a few weeks after the initial experience with the drug. we watched a movie at a friend's apartment. as these things go, this friend's mom was often gone so it became the breeding ground for many 'firsts' of all kinds. i remember perceiving people around me moving in fast forward, then in rewind, and occasionally in slow motion. one of my friends got on her hands and knees and crawled to the television, sniffing it like a dog. another friend improvised a frankenstein monologue. it was actually really scary and fairly accurate. i remember thinking, "holy shit".  

active consumption

i knew my dad grew pot in our backyard. he had big bags of it that he didn't hide very well. i would take a bunch from him and keep it in old altoids tins. i smoked joints, mostly with my boyfriend. our favorite place to smoke was in the baseball dugout of his high school.

soon after initial contact, i started smoking by myself, mostly. i often fashioned pipes out of apples. green ones, because they had the tendency to be less mealy. up until recently i thought i had invented this.

my dad never found out i stole weed from him, though i think he assumed. i stopped stealing from him when he offered to share a joint with me. it was one of the first times we could openly talk to each other with mutual respect and understanding. we talked about my mom a lot, who died when i was fourteen. i used to think it was strange we needed to do drugs together to be open with one another, but now i don't think so. sometimes parents have the tendency to pretend to be people they're not. i'm grateful my dad doesn't do that. and i don't think we "need drugs" to be close at all. it just makes it more fun. plus he will always make me delicious snacks.    

funny things/negative experiences

only once i have ever been in trouble with the law for pot. i rode my bike to the mall and jumped over a concrete barricade that held a couple of dumpsters behind tower records. i intended to roll a couple of joints and then, i don't know, maybe ride my bike in circles around the mall. as soon as i could break up the weed a guy yelled at me to get out of the concrete box-like structure. i had a hard time getting out as there were little to no footholds to leverage myself, not to mention my lack of upper body strength. as i struggled to get out, four cop cars rolled up, surrounding me. i told them i was rolling tobacco. a good lie, i now realize. i started crying and asking if they were going to call my dad. one of the lady cops was being really nice to me and even rubbed my shoulder a little bit. she could tell i was scared. i was banned from the mall for six months.

i got my brother high for the first time on this really shitty weed that i bought from someone who does a lot of ecstasy. i drove him to his apartment and there was only a mattress on the floor and a seahorse light on the wall. the weed was brown and looked awful but i was scared he'd hurt me if i said anything, so i gave him forty dollars and left.

the most memorable time i got way too high was one of the first weeks of college. i was at a guy's house who had an iguana and blacklights. his weed was "from the club", which was a big deal at the time. we smoked maybe two blunts and i took a few bong hits. the strain of weed he had was called "god's gift". i don't know what i was thinking. his friend drove us back and, driving through the dorms in the backseat, i remember having the perception that the buildings were movie sets and i was on the truman show. put simply, i freaked out. i began to evaluate the trajectory of my life and was scared to go into the cafeteria for the next three days. i cried a lot.

once i found a mystery nug on my dresser. i smoked it and got a fever and flu-like symptoms for a period of 24 hours. don't smoke mystery nugs.    

conclusion/methods of consumption

i often grapple with the role of pot in my life. sometimes it makes me highly paranoid, especially when i smoke with people i don't know well.

i continue to smoke pot on a fairly regular basis. i like to ingest it in the form of baked goods. i have had pot cookies, brownies, chocolate, and rice krispie treats. once i made tea out of the leftover leaves from my dad's last harvest. it was good. it made me feel weird. mind over matter, maybe.

i hate smoking out of bongs. it seems futuristic and kind of intense. i used to like spliffs, but the taste isn't that good and i don't get the point, really. also, it makes me dizzy.

i've smoked out of a volcano and that was whatever. i was high almost always around that time, so it's difficult for me to assess the effectiveness/enjoyability of the high.

now i mostly smoke alone.

i think the reason i continue to smoke pot is in hopes that i will soon find my dream man that will share my affinity for "dank in bed". my dream is to join this man in mutually fulfilling sexual acts then watch netflix in bed, preferably something funny, or maybe a foreign film if we're exclusive.

2011-01-03T12:17:00.000-08:00

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Cassandra Troyan / ADDICTED TO THE DICK

So you have sex on your period
and it’s so good/bad
that you don’t
know if you are bleeding
or wet sooo
you gooooooo
ohhhh, ahhhh, ohhhhhh?
uhhhhhh……
ahhhh!
and you think maybe this is
why Lil’ Wayne said,
“THE FILET MIGNON;
THAT PUSSY,
IMA GET IN AN’
OWN DAT PUSSY,”
because maybe if we think of
a slab of pussy
on a plate
that gets docilely
eaten instead
of it eating you,
you can eat it/eat it out
and feel more
powerful.

And maybe it’s just that
sometimes it feels good to bleed
with/on
someone else.

2011-01-03T12:07:00.000-08:00

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Ana Carrete / four poems or i feel insecure about titles

for he’s a jolly good fellow

i touch your dick and sing
for he’s a jolly good fellow
you touch my tits and sing
for he’s a jolly good fellow
but you make it plural and feminine
i stop singing and ask you what
the fuck is wrong with us

dumb title 1

my bra was way
too tight all day
long and i couldn't
breathe properly

dumb title 2

i need to search
and click cause
i need some

dumb title 3

the other day i spent the day
with a stupid president
i payed attention for a while
then gave up and felt furious

whenever any issue of importance came up
i looked back and analyzed conflicts
for a while
i burped soda and felt invisible

2011-01-03T11:48:00.002-08:00

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Shannon Stovall / The Weight

01 | 02 | 03 | 04

2011-01-03T11:48:00.001-08:00

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Shannon Stovall / The Weight

01 | 02 | 03 | 04

2011-01-03T11:48:00.000-08:00

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Shannon Stovall / The Weight

01 | 02 | 03 | 04

2011-01-03T11:44:00.000-08:00

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Shannon Stovall / The Weight

01 | 02 | 03 | 04

2011-01-03T10:58:00.000-08:00

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Thom Asewicz / CWITEOTWFM

from Thom Asewicz

to michael inscoe

date Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 6:07 PM

subject CWITEOTWFM

Dear Michael,

I don't know a single thing about True Blood, but when walking around the library one day I saw an ad for the True Blood lady and a reading/presentation/Q&A that she was doing. The ad mentioned that there was going to be a signing after the reading/presentation/Q&A.

Earlier that day, _________ mentioned to me that she was really into True Blood and had been marathoning it. So after I saw the ad, I went and bought the first book for her and tickets to the reading/presentation/Q&A because I really wanted to send it to her and I thought, well, I don't really remember what exactly I thought, but I felt that it would be a fun surprise.

So I lied to some friends (which I hated doing) and told them that I had a class the day of the presentation. I don't know why I did that. I want to chalk it up to a mad man phase that I "was" going through, but instead I'll say that it is because of this mad man phase that I "am" going through. And I don't think that anybody wants anybody else to think that they're crazy/stupid slash whatever. But here I want to admit that out loud to you because I remember sitting through the presentation and not feeling weird for a second that I was alone, but having the strangest urge to talk to her at that moment because the truth was that I didn't have a fucking clue about what all of these people around me were talking about and I just wanted to get the goddamn book signed because I really like the idea of making her smile and really that was all I wanted to do, like the title of your book, and isn't that the truth and why we do everything? And I was nervous about getting it signed and kept thinking things like, "Fuck, what if she doesn't sign it?" and then the presentation let out and I waited in line to get the book signed, and met this great couple and the guy knew all of these amazing Arnold Schwarzenegger quotes and we had to think for a minute about whether or not it really was Predator that had "Get to the chopper!" in it. But four hours and one cigarette later, I got the book signed and Mike (the "get to the chopper" dude) took this photograph for me and while I've shared this photograph with other people, here's the actual story behind it.

Oh, and I texted you that night and we both talked about how glad we were to have phones and I think we traded photographs.

Things like that make me feel "good".

I'm trying to feel "great" all of the time and to think less about things.

Wish me luck?

Your friend,

Thom

P.S. I mailed the book to her. I think she liked it.

True Blood Lady.jpg
189K View Download

2011-01-03T10:55:00.000-08:00

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Cookie Golden /

2011-01-03T10:52:00.000-08:00

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Megan Boyle / personal message

2011-01-03T10:49:00.000-08:00

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Alethea Beeker / greys

after I got up to pee in the middle of a sephora group interview
a man with his belly tucked in and over his belt tells me
it is ‘interesting’ how my dress blows open. ‘sorry’
he insists he does not ‘mind’
on the ride home i imagine giving my boyfriend a blow job all the way through
sometimes it gets so hard. the job part
ever notice how the writers of grey’s anatomy make their characters say everything twice?
‘I am moving in with owen.’
‘I am moving in with owen. I am. And and’
like, how every show you can tell the actors are reciting the stuttery parts?
‘I will give him a blow job all the way through’
‘I will give him a blow job all the way through. Because because’

2011-01-03T10:48:00.000-08:00

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Jon Dye / Voices - Live Run

2011-01-03T10:40:00.001-08:00

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Collin Winnette / Margie, Jim, Claire and I

There were four of us. We were friends. My wife met Margie first then introduced me to her husband, Jim. Jim and I took to one another like a couple of college freshmen. We joked about our wives, but nothing too mean. I loved my wife and Margie is a beautiful, beautiful woman. Historically, I’ve been resistant to every one of Claire’s friends’ husbands. But Jim was excitable, and I liked that. At that first meeting, we kept them waiting, Margie and Claire. They made polite conversation as Jim and I made plans to go jogging, golfing, swimming, both of us were in serious need of all of it. I don’t remember a single lull in the conversation, though I’m sure there were. Seven, one per refill, if you were to ask Margie.

Golfing was something we had both done when we were younger. We’d never owned clubs, but we had gone to expensive schools, where we met expensive people, so we learned to golf, to drink during the day, to laugh earnestly enough at an inflection in someone’s voice, rather than the words. Insincerity is what I mean. Anyway, we both knew how to golf and we had both liked the idea of playing again, at that first meeting. But we never got around to it.

For a month, while we weren’t golfing, we swam together five days a week. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, in the morning. Saturday and Sunday afternoons. For the past five years Jim had been exercising on the bedroom balcony, push-ups, sit-ups, stretches, that kind of thing.

One Friday, he cancelled our swim because of the pain in his ear. The next day he fell. However it happened, he doubled over the cement railing and fell, two floors, onto the rose bushes below. The bushes softened the fall, caught his body, tore him up, but his head had already hit the edge of a lawn chair that had been pushed away from the table and left there, more than likely, by one of the children. He was out for a few days. They sewed his nipple back on while he was sleeping, simple enough to slip it by him. He lost a lot of blood before they found him, his two children, Paul, 14, Mary, 12. He could have died.

The infection in his ear, the doctor told us, may have upset his sense of balance. It doesn’t take much, the doctor said. We were talking to the doctor because Margie was gone, at the beach house for a week. She’d left her phone. They’d disconnected the landline years ago. Even the kids had cells at that point. She needed a week, she’d said, and she’d gone.

I volunteered to make the drive. It was only four hours or so and I knew I could use the time to myself, to clear my head, to fill it again, with something different.

“When, even? What are you even talking about?” I sort of laugh, but it’s more I push air up from the gut, and say, “When or how…it’s just too rid-,”

“At the beachhouse!” Claire is screaming too loud for me to listen, but that’s what I assume she’s said. I’ve seen her like this once before, at a friend’s wedding. Julie and Mike were married one year after us. At the reception, I heard her without knowing it was her, the sound of her voice, like a bird for food, it cut the music to a hum and rendered silent my memory of any sound to the drink she threw at Mike or her movement toward me, her hand to my wrist, and us out the door.

Now I’m thinking about what Mike might have said then, rather than what she’s just said, and I can tell my silence is somehow better than any defense I might have managed, because she’s down, she’s in a soft chair, crying, sure, but it’s only in her shoulders.

“Just think…I mean, would you just think about it for a second?” I ask. “It’s crazy,” I say. I hesitate at the word, then go with it. “Do you hear how crazy that sounds?” I put a hand on her shoulder. There’s something like a shudder at my palm, although she may have been changing position.

“I drove to the house. I told Marge about Jim. She was upset. She wanted to sleep, so we left first thing in the morning. Nothing happened, Claire.” Those are such guilty sounding words. I promise myself I won’t repeat them.

“Margie told me one time that, when she was really mad with him, she wouldn’t fight, she wouldn’t yell. She would just leave, because he drank when she left. He got depressed and he drank and when she came back he couldn’t say how many days she’d been gone, but he would always apologize for everything, for anything, and beg her to come back and to help him.” For some reason, I sense an implication or accusation somewhere in what she’s just said, but I’m not sure exactly what it is or of whom, so I redirect the theme.

“She was drunk at the beach house,” I say. “She needed…before we could go, she had to sleep it off.” Claire’s a lot calmer now that we’re talking them via them, not us via them.

Jim and I were best at jogging. We went daily, when we could, even on the days we swam. Sometimes one then the other, or vice versa. Before he fell, we shared an excellent attitude about the whole thing. Neither of us let the other talk their way out of it, which we both tried, every once in awhile. It took us awhile to get the hang of it, to work out a routine.

The first time the run was too short. The second, we wound up a considerable distance from where we started, different kinds of trees, another part of town, if not another town entirely. We were in the woods. Too tired to turn back, we rested for a while, our backs to hackberry trunks. We talked a little about this and that before Jim pulled his cock out and began killing time with himself. He gave me a look that said two things: I’m not bothering you, am I? and, you’ve got one too, right? I went ahead with it and we jerked off together, turning away from one another to come in the grass where our respective hands had been.

“It’s not like I couldn’t live without her,” he tells me later, after talk of life insurance policies began to sag. “But maybe I wouldn’t want to, who knows? What would that even mean? You can’t really know just what people mean to you, or you to them, you know?” I’m dehydrated, I think. I’ve got a headache.

“Sure,” I say, “no, yeah, I know.”

“How did you and Claire meet?” Margie’s breath is excellent and sweet and thick and hot and at me as I’m brushing sand from my bare feet with a balled sock.

“Same as anybody meets, I guess. I used to wear this hat, a floppy, dusty kind of thing with an ostrich feather in the band, and she saw me walking up this slant of concrete railing and stopped me to ask about the hat. All pretense of course, but that’s the compliment of it, I guess. That you’re worth the time to lie to.” I think Margie’s nodding, or she’s laughing and it’s shaking her body.

“You wore a floppy hat?” As a habit, Margie takes to carpets in the evenings, and she’s there now, on her back, knees together, watching the ceiling with a peripatetic eye.

“Yes,” I say. “However many years ago.”

“It’s a charming story,” she says, with a smile to belt back the laughter. I’m tugging at a bit of nail.

“What is?” It tears, comes lose with a slit of skin.

“Never mind,” and, after a moment, “I can’t show up like this…I wasn’t expecting-“

“Right, none of us were.” I walk over to her, drop the sock. I sit down beside her on the carpet. “Get some sleep and we’ll go in the morning. Claire’s promised to call me if anything changes.” That night we slept and we didn’t sleep, and when we slept it was fitful sleep.

The next time Jim and I went jogging, we chose a new direction, southeast, toward the park we had avoided before, for how far it was. Two and a half miles later, we were there, halfway we decided, and we stopped for water at the public restroom. We went inside to pee and Jim pulled it out again, at the sink this time as if to wash it. I hesitated. He gave me a look that said two things: only a little, but you’ve hurt my feelings and, you’ve still got a cock, right? I joined him at the second sink, side by side as if at the stalls.

Afterward, we walked side by side to get warmed up for the run home.

“She’s on this fish thing now,” he says. “I keep telling her, the mercury, Sweety, the mercury, and I don’t really have a taste for fish. But, I don’t know, she’s just on this fish thing,” he says. So we’re having fish on Friday, I think.

One afternoon Claire won’t hold my hand on the street. We’d been shopping before we got the call. We found nothing to buy, really, but the street is full of people who’ve made up for our lack of purchasing power. It’s ironic, irksome really, her resisting the touch, because I’m the one who usually breaks contact first, or avoids it altogether. It makes me uncomfortable to hold hands in public, even more so to have my arm around her, as if I’m saying, you’re mine, alright, and to everyone looking, she’s mine alright? She’s not going anywhere, yeah?

So something’s wrong because she takes my hand, but drops it real quick and when I go back for it she kind of bats my hand away.

“Ok, so-,” I say, but then the sound starts up behind us. It’s a kind of wet, glittering sound, like a metal balloon smacked and popped and spitting, then a screeching starts up and the people around us are making so much noise I can’t figure out where to look until I see the truck, the woman, and their meeting. It’s like the truck pushes her aside to keep going. It’s right side, front and back tire, are the on the sidewalk, tracing a diagonal line from the road originating at the woman’s body. It arcs inward, moves back toward the street slightly, rudderless in low wind, and all the while it’s smacking meter after meter with perverse regularity.

The truck is mowing meters, I’ve got both arms around Claire as if it could lurch across the street at any moment, and it continues for longer than you’d expect. It sounds like this: SOUND – SOUND – SOUND – SOUND –… SOUND –… Sound, and then you can hear the coins chittering around the stalled rubber like villagers pleading to be spared. That’s actually what I thought of, in that moment, villagers begging forgiveness, the truck as some kind of vengeful god. The coins gathered around it in this scattered circle, flattened, singing from their side, shining and waiting and still.

Across the street a smaller woman is standing above the woman who was pushed aside by the truck. The smaller woman is yelling into a cell phone at who would have to be an emergency operator to understand her, or to have patience enough to stay on the line.

Eventually, an ambulance comes. Claire and I watch. They take the woman, the ambulance leaves. We leave. Jim’s up. Not up, up, but his eyes are open. That was the call.

“Think they’re going to the same hospital as us?” Claire asks. She sounds young, childlike.

“Maybe,” I say. “But I’m sure we wouldn’t see them.” The rest of the way we go from arm in arm to holding hands to arm at waist to hand on back to arm at neck, head to neck, cheek at cheek, hand in hand, hugging sometimes as we move.

At the hospital, I kiss her. We’re in front of the sliding door.

“I don’t think you’re goofy,” she says, out of nowhere. There’s guilt in the words, but less than in mine.

“What?”

“Well…,” a truck passes behind her and she turns to look at that instead. “I don’t know, never mind, it’s not worth…it sounds shallow when I get ready to say it, but I went through all kinds of promises to myself earlier when…” She just stops there, and I give her a look that says two things: only a little, but you’ve hurt my feelings, and, you’re going to say this, right?

Then she does and I hate it, or don’t like it much, and we go inside, past the waiting room, past check-in, past the man using his IV as a kind of cane, past three closed curtains and one open curtain where a woman is peeling back bed sheets and balling them up while a man wipes the floor then a chair and I notice all of it but say nothing, think nothing, really, more than this then that then that then that thing then the next, because I’m feeling so confused and tender and angry and childish and ready to see my friend and scared.

“You look good,” I tell Jim.

It’s been just him and me. Claire and Margie left only a few moments ago. Jim is as awake as ever, but he’s all stitches and IVs and a cast there at the wrist, and we talk about Claire for awhile, what she’s told me just now, what Margie said about me and how, after that, Claire couldn’t help seeing me as, I don’t know, kind of goofy, and Jim says that I’m damn straight kind of goofy, but that’s not a bad thing, right? I don’t say anything because I don’t think I have anything more to say. I told him what I thought I needed to tell him, and then I went on about the whole goofy thing because I suddenly wanted to repeat what Claire said, just for my own sake. It’s sounded spiteful, though, when I say what she said.

I’m thinking about that, about how suddenly spiteful it all sounded, when Jim puts down a small white stick and uses the casted hand, the one without the IV, to move the sheets aside and slowly take out his cock. I sit back in my chair, check the window. Blinds are down. I look back at him and there’s no look really, he just looks kind of comfortable sitting/lying there, like a friend driving us to dinner, so routine is the whole thing at this point. But the routine is gone, and there’s all of this instead: the pucker of each hole where the nurse failed to strike a vein, the swollen bruise at his neck as from a toothless vampire, the engorged bag at his waist where the waste’s collected, dried blood at his ear, frosting the tip of his nose, the edge of a quivering nostril. He looks sick and dead, or like he’s too stubborn to let death in so it’s gathered there on his face, where it’s caked, hardened, flaking and dark in wait.

I sort of fumble with my jeans a little, tug at the leg, the crotch. I’ve got nothing and can’t look, but I can hear him. I listen for Claire, who’ll be back at any moment. I really hate that she called me goofy.

When we arrive at Jim’s hospital room no one’s saying anything. I mean, we greet one another. We hug Jim, each of us, Margie too, and we are so happy he’s awake. We’re so happy to have our friend back. But then no one’s saying anything, not really. And I can’t hold it in. What, I can’t be sure exactly, but there’s something that’s got to come out so I just start talking as if it will come eventually, if I give it a chance, and so I do. I start with the Rule of Threes. Awful things, they come in threes, right? Always, or so they feel. So we’ve got Jim’s fall, the woman on the street that day, and:

“I don’t know, I’m so relieved because I thought the third thing was going to be you, which is, you know, probably ridiculous when you think about it, because the first thing was you, but I was worried nonetheless. But here you are! So why worry!” Margie sort of laughs and looks to Claire who’s watching her lap, watching her hands, looking elsewhere. Then Margie’s hungry, she thinks they should eat, her and Claire, together, right then, like she’s looking for a reason to leave. Claire agrees and takes my fingers in this kind of tender, shaking way and after that, Jim and I are alone.

I don’t know, I can’t say why I’m uncomfortable exactly. In a way, things are going so well right now. I try to explain myself to Jim, just a little.

“It’s just that these things keep happening, one after the other, and I…can I tell you? Can I really tell you? I just don’t know how to take them. What are maybe normal things or maybe not, but either way…” I stop there, but don’t like stopping there because, while I’m not sure exactly what I’m trying to say here, I know what I’ve said isn’t right.

“What things,” he says. I want to tell him that I think he’s a good friend, and that I’ve been scared for him, and that fear is a kind of a weightlessness, then explain how so much of life feels like one thing, but every now and then something will feel like another thing and I remember we live in a physical world.

“I don’t know, more and more of it,” I say.

He’s got a little white stick in his hand, it’s at the end of some cable leading to who knows where. There’s a button at the end that he’s pressing and pressing, making little clicks each time. Click, click.

“Sure,” he says. Click.

I still haven’t said enough to make the thing come out right, but I know well enough what the thing to say would be. You look good, would be the thing to say now, as if I’d said nothing else. I’m kind of tapping my foot. I’m kind of looking at the window.

“I slept with Margie,” I tell him. I hadn’t planned on telling him and I don’t feel that much better after doing so. “But I won’t do it again.” He sort of nods, then looks at me, then nods for sure.

“Yeah,” he says. “We’re still friends.” Click.

“You look good,” I tell him, before he puts down the white stick and sits back in his bed, as if I’d said nothing else.

2011-01-03T10:21:00.000-08:00

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Meggie Green / Dolphins

2011-01-03T10:19:00.000-08:00

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Ryan Manning / barely legal teens

sometimes i masturbate

usually the bare minimum required in order to prevent nocturnal emissions

if i don't ejaculate once per 3-7 days then i will inevitably orgasm during sleep

in the past i have also used masturbation as a means of escaping despair

that doesn't work

sometimes it feels good

sometimes it feels bad

it usually feels better if i practice moderation

2011-01-03T10:16:00.000-08:00

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Guy Choate / Homeless Guy in Memphis 2006

Night, 9 September 2006, Memphis, TN

I was running down Main Street with Kaia tonight. We were on our way back. We walked down to the Cannon Center and ran through the fountains. Kaia didn’t like the water. We were running back and almost home when I heard a black man across the street yelling, “Somebody please help me.” I thought maybe he’d been stabbed or something. It was desperate. Everyone having drinks at the Green Beetle ignored him. He was sitting propped up against a building. He probably just wants some booze. He’s probably drunk, not desperate, I thought. “I need some water. Please.” I turned and looked at him across the street as I kept running. “You need some water?” I asked. “Yes.” "I’ll be right back." I kept running. “And some food.” He said. His voice was scratchy as he yelled. It was like he was yelling from somewhere deep down inside of him. I passed my weirdo neighbor on a Segway Scooter as I got to our condo. He liked to lean on it every day after work and pretend that he used it for practical purposes. I went upstairs and got my two liter orange juice container I keep full of water in the fridge. I put the peach fried pies I got this morning at the farmer’s market on a plate and used the paper bowl they were in to fill with leftover spaghetti. The kind of paper bowl that makes me think of eating nachos at a high school athletic event. I heated up the spaghetti, grabbed a fork, and went back to the man. As I got closer to him, I heard him yelling at people coming in and out of the liquor store on the corner, but his words were inaudible. His head was hidden behind a brick wall that protruded toward the street. His bare feet stuck out across the sidewalk. He saw me just before I got right up to him, and I startled him, but instead of gasping or screaming, he said “I love you.” “I love you, too.” And I said it out of habit, but then I realized that I kind of did love him. He was wearing a tie-dyed tee-shirt that was ripped down the middle. And pants that looked like they got in a fight with a cheese grater. “Spaghetti.” “Thank you. Thank you.” He kept saying thank you. Over and over, but each time he said it seemed like a complete thought. Thank you. Thank you. Not thankyouthankyou. He was desperate. “Do you have a fork?” I asked him. “No.” I pulled the fork from my pocket and he took it from me without ever taking his eyes from the spaghetti. He peeled back the generic brand of Saran Wrap I had covered it with and shoved his teeth into it. Even though I had just handed him the fork. It was as if he didn’t think he had enough time to grip the fork correctly before he would die of starvation. I understood it. I sat down beside him and put the water in between us. He burst into tears. When I saw him cry I almost did, too. But he never stopped eating. He ate and cried and ate and cried and ate and cried. He was inhaling and exhaling spaghetti. I thought of how tragic it would be if he choked to death on the very pasta that was preventing him from dying of starvation. He picked up the water and drank and drank and drank. I couldn’t help but stare as this man probably drank a liter before he ever came up for air. I thought about how good that must taste—cold water, warm spaghetti. I just stared at him. He stopped about three-quarters of the way from finishing, though and began to lie down on the sidewalk. He groaned. He ached. He made noises that reminded me of noises my grandfather used to make when his back would ache unexpectedly. This man had grey hair. He was older, but not old. When he turned his body toward me his shirt hung down and I could see his chest. His chest hairs were grey, too, and his skin was tight against his ribcage. He was in pain. He wasn’t faking. His breath didn’t smell like alcohol like I expected it to. “You saved my life.” He mumbled now when he spoke. It was harder to hear him now that he was lying down. He told me he had awoken from a deep sleep today, not knowing how long he’d been asleep and he was having this dream where a voice told him to wake up and beg for water. It was hard for me to believe this story, but just the same, he said he’d been there all day, begging for water and no one ever helped him. He drifted in and out of sleep all day. I looked at his bare feet. They were small. Smaller than they used to be, I think. His toes looked as if they were melded together, as if they had been crammed into shoes that were two sizes too small for long periods of time. His white Reeboks sitting on the sidewalk beside him weren’t in bad shape, but his feet were. I asked him if he stayed in Memphis or if he moved around. He used to move around, but he’s been in Memphis for a while. He’s from here. He left his life three years ago when his 17-year-old daughter was killed by a stray bullet while slept in her bed. “It went straight through her heart. She was all I had, so I left.” “Shit.” That’s all I could think to say to this man, "shit." He was tired–I could tell. He was tired of hating the world that swallowed up his only child. Tired of hating people. But he had nothing left to do, but hate. He told me again that he loved me. I told him that I loved him, too. “It hurt so bad. I was so thirsty.” He said. I told him about the time I was in the Mojave Desert and I didn’t think I was ever going to find any water. I looked at his eyes as they stared at me with curiosity, his head on the concrete. “Did you find any?” He asked. He cared. “Yes.” I told him I was thirsty, too. That we all get really thirsty sometimes, and that it hurts so bad, and that we never think to yell for help until it hurts really, really bad. And that that’s fucked up. He agreed. I felt like I’d known him forever as shiny cars passed by us and stared. He felt it, too. We were just alike. And then I said, “I’ve got to go home.” And on the walk I thought about what I was going to do for dinner now that my spaghetti wasn't in the fridge.

2010-12-29T15:33:00.000-08:00

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Shannon Sturgis / doggies.jpg

2010-12-29T15:27:00.000-08:00

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Adam Simms / You are going to die.

1971 - June July August September October November December
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2010-12-29T15:26:00.001-08:00

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Phillip Huddleston /

He was a man who prided himself
on his awareness of what others had created.
Books, movies, music, at times art.
These worlds were catalogues of conversation
summoned with some sneer of condescension
for the ignorant to whom he preached.

It was these things that allowed him to live
such an unmovitvated life that favored contentment of
uselessness beyond any desire.

And yet while satiated by such mild standards,
he reserved nothing but contempt
for the productive friends that flickered in
and out of his life.

2010-12-29T15:25:00.001-08:00

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Michael Inscoe / selected comments from The Dream - Fast Car (musicvideo 2008/2009), musicNlove24, edited, remixed

People say my muzic kinda soundz like the dream
im trying to make my muzic public now
so im askin u if possible
if u can check out my songz

& now that i really watch it i realize there isn't lmfao woopz!
iJustDontGiveAShit
Who gives a fuck what you think?

lol
You're just a poor hater
Go find a fire and die in it.

you should have told him

you don't give a shit what he thinkin

lol jk, but yeah agree with you

FUCK YOU HATERS!
i listen to rock and metal
i still appreciate this song as good music