writing is the easy part.

it's the drinking that gets to me, all bottoms up and fermented cider. my uncle was an alcoholic, I think. the cigarettes killed him, I think.

what I know is he was magic. he could spin his tongue the whole way around his front tooth.





would she approve?

the oven grows warmer.

he is making beans, he is making tofu, he will layer them under red salsa, spicy hot.

I am drinking cider in the living room. 

I am writing and drinking cider in the living room. I am aware that you will read this.


Dostoevsky was an honest man, a smart man. I know nothing about him.

save that his words excite me. I recognize in him an honest man.


"she's a smart one," they all said, and my parents smiled approvingly. there was a time I resented them for it.

this oldness is new, is strange: I no longer blame my parents for my condition. I am blissfully responsible.



the headphones lie beside the binoculars on top of the quilt. "is this too girly for you" she said he does not remember. here I go devolving into vagaries and the routine run-on sentence. here I go trying to show you I am smart. that I have a heart!

now I will say something like, "it is beating."