I pore over drawings by famous psychotics. The erotomaniac Adele Hugo’s senseless novel diary, walls of black scrawl. She was trying to mirror her father, shut up in his study, except that she was writing nonsense, shut up in her madness. I borrow books from the library near the clinic. I stare through the gaping eyes of Antonin Artaud’s faces and the swirls Nijinsky drew in colored pencil and crayon. I know what these swirls mean. If I slide into them, I will never come out. I lose the ability to read, unlearning words. I don’t have to ask what happens next. The stains spread and the rope is ..read more

        At night you stay awake and search.           mexico resort crocodile att-        The word attack autocompletes; it knows what you want.         Resume browsing? Yes.         You press return and the results fill the page, the headlines too familiar. You never click on any of them because you already know: it came ashore, took the child, and dragged her into the sea. You don’t need to read the articles. It to ..read more

I love you, Matt, but I can’t talk right now because I just hit our bathroom wall hard. It stung my hand, but it got me breathing again. My mind was choking me for a second there and I thought you’d have to bring me to the emergency room again. Just like you did when we were in college, and I realized that I would have to go home and live with my parents again after graduation. In the ER they had me take a pregnancy test and then gave me a Xanax. As I zoned out watching Friends, you said you were going to ask me if I wanted to live with you, but you just hadn’t yet. Right now I don’t have a Xa ..read more

We have this thing where if we get too close, our heads explode and we die. I go, “I’ll live underground, you live aboveground. The layers of dirt and rock will make sure we don’t die, okay?” She goes, “I love this idea.” I grab a shovel and start digging. I dig and dig and dig until I’ve dug a beautiful life below the earth’s crust. My underground house has an underground pool, underground WiFi, an underground brewery, and everything else I’ll ever need. She does the same aboveground—massive gardens and various bodies of water and fireflies and mountaintops and you name it. We connect two tin ..read more

Not for sure. What we knew was that Eliot had ordered a telescope straight from China – not more than $200, we were shocked – and he had shown us – photographed it first with his phone pressed to the eyepiece – the purplish frayed shadow at the edge of the moon. Mountains as lace. The shadow! he’d been saying. Then there’d been the shots. Three of us gone silent and pert as meerkats. Fireworks? It wasn’t, we knew. All our heads turned north. Calculating, same as Eliot had calculated which lens to search for Jupiter and found instead the moon. Three blocks. Should we call?&n ..read more

You chug spiked hot chocolate, dig your toes into cold clinging sand, bare your throat to the maddened sprawl of stars. The light of the party is behind you now, and step by step you creep closer to the ocean. Your boyfriend is urging you on, his laugh ringing crystal against the broad bowl of the night, and suddenly you remember what your grandmother told you: Don’t swim too far. Her eyes glowing with an unfamiliar fear. You’ll lose yourself out there.             But right now all you want to do is lose yourself. Half your boyfriend’s fa ..read more

You blew out the last candle at 10 pm. As if this room isn’t a shrine, as if your peeling photograph, coffee stain like a birthmark isn’t propped against the one book you didn’t finish and left in place of you. Did your three of swords bookmark prick you? Did you ache to bear sorrow for me? You should have taken it with you then. I never asked you to carry me, I break enough things. Just a place to crawl into, like the space between breaths. The luxury of quiet outside contusion. The tang of pine in the sound after thunder. Did you have enough of pain? Even the book you deserted keeps your sec ..read more

CW: it’s just sort of gross   They were making out on his couch when Rich said, “I gotta tell you something, baby: I have crabs.” “Fuck!” Larissa pulled back. “I’m not hooking up with a guy with VD!” “VD?! I didn’t say that. Gross. I said crabs. Look.” He pulled his sweatpants out; they were full of tiny blue crabs. Swarming, industrious. There was a raw crater where his penis used to be. The crabs scuttled around and over each other, the clacking of their tiny claws like a rustling applause. Some were embedded in his meat, just their back legs visible, scrambling to go deeper. “See? It’s ..read more

It would like nothing more than to shed, pirouette and moonwalk away to its own music, leaving me behind like a deflated pool dragon. My skeleton’s drumbeat for freedom began years ago. A freckled-faced dare launched me from a squeaking swing, and my jutting shin tasted a bloody sunshine slurpy. Young and naive, I tried to appease my skeleton with flattery. I wore its likeness Halloweens. When old enough to drive, I dangled tiny skulls like dice from the rear-view mirror. I went to Mexico for Day of the Dead. But despite my good intentions, the rhythm beneath my skin persisted. Marriage amplif ..read more

I’m holding crystal light water enhancers because I know you love them and I figure you’re dehydrated. I need help. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you. My twisted theory: gifts are the lifeline to keep us going. DVDs to add to your collection. Vintage shirts that are too small for me and look better on you. Mint vapes. Sugar free red bulls. He likes this stuff, I think. Before I ring your bell, I’m filled with nostalgia from the stench of rotten berries on your sidewalk. I almost slip, but it feels good to be in touch with my adrenaline. I use the concrete steps to catch my fall and to scra ..read more