Raul Alvarez's Blog

Zolpidem

Warning: May cause sleep paralysis, a phenomenon in which people, either when falling asleep or wakening, temporarily experience an inability to move: a transition state between wakefulness and rest characterized by complete muscle weakness. Sleep paralysis can occur at onset of sleep or upon awakening. It is often associated with

a weight on my chest the laying on of hands and you in the corner of it whispering

the sound of

||| t r e e s |||

In Mexican folklore, sleep paralysis is caused

by matilda, a damned woman who is carried

mysteriously during sleep as if by current

without her noticing her son is in the room.

He is writing this in circles on the wall

if that’s even possible in a post-religious

body which is my body the men watched my

body watch the images of children. They

wore such smart white jackets I thought

I’d ask them where they bought such smart

white jackets but you can’t believe the images

if you don’t mind I’ll kiss you softly and build a new

home in the river Mijito every little piece is asleep you

can teach me how to keep from absolutely freaking

out about Mexican folklore if you don’t mind I’ll cry

OH NO I forgot to mention the hallucinations so don’t

trust any of that unless you are absolutely sure you are

awake. You are awake, right? I really need to know you

are a year’s worth of skin lost, a series of unrecognizable

||| p u r p l e  s c a r s |||

Stay over weekends. Sweets and late Friday television.

Find an animal, unnamed, meant for the edge of the river,

unnamed. Wake up and move your hand off of it. Now.

A simple moving violation is the only charge I can find

disrupted REM sleep, which is normally characterized

by complete muscle atonia that prevents individuals

from acting out their dreams. Focus on your breathing

until your eyes breach the surface

You are f l o w e r i n g  ||| l u n g s |||

Sleep paralysis has been linked to disorders such as narcolepsy, migraines, anxiety disorders, and obstructive sleep apnea; however, it can also occur in isolation When linked to another disorder. I’ve always called God a he but I could be wrong

My eyes changed with the sound of breaking. Still.

The sound of trees.

You in the corner of it whispering

maltida.

On Empathy

Holy God there is nothing more immediate (to me, right now) than Ocean Vuong’s writing. His essay, Beginnings: New York in The Adroit Journal is an empathic epic. Weaving his collegiate origin story as aspiring poet, homeless New Yorker, and retrofitted nurse for a friend’s Lithuanian grandmother, Vuong’s essay is everything you need to know about propitiating humanity in the age of all of us.

He closed his eyes and sang. If velvet cigarettes had a sound, that was it. It was “At Last” by Etta James. Sage started to shift his feet and I could tell his bones knew this familiar work as he gyrated and two-stepped, his fingers quickening into a snapping to the beat. “Man! How he gonna do me like this? This song gonna kill me tonight. It’s the saddest song in the world,” he shouted, his face wet with sweat. I nodded, smiling. People were already gathering, mostly other residents, but there were some stragglers of the night who were waiting for the final trains, standing with their last beers, a pizza or a pretzel in their hands. I saw the other homeless men and women begin to cheer up as they gathered and lay down around the song. Their limbs started to move and gesticulate as they warmed up to one another. As if through the song’s familiar landscape, they were able to see each other as human begins again. The whole scene had the effect of tremendous warmth and crushing sadness. I suddenly started to think of my mother, how, after my father was in prison, she and I would stand in the long lines outside churches to receive a loaf of bread and dented cans of soup. How we warmed ourselves by making up a song and dancing as the line moved along the snowy parking lot. I was suddenly stricken with a overpowering urge to weep. I wanted to weep fully and hard. But I didn’t. I was actually too tired to do so. I didn’t have the energy or even the cathartic motivation to cry. I just focused on busying my lips with the song, letting the words find their way in as I chewed those bittersweet lyrics with Sage beside me. “At last…. At last, my love has come along…”

I Have a Book Coming Out

I have a book of poetry coming out through Boost House and am so excited about it! It’s titled There Was So Much Beautiful Left and it’s about mental illness, god, and empathy.

You can order it here:

http://www.boost-house.com/store/raul-alvarez

Lunch

What I am thinking while falling backwards off the barstool in Sushi Soto is when the fuck did I get so old?

My head smacks, something cracks, I throw up mainly on my chest, and the bartender runs over. Because blacking out would have been even more embarrassing, I don’t.

He is a very polite yeller. “Sir? Sir your injury is bad? Yes sir I can help you!”

I can’t explain how these shenanigans happen but they’re why Annie dropped me off. She knows I’m not worth the trouble and one of her stories was starting soon and she’s fed up with missing her stories.

Today’s story: Murder by Design, on HGTV, where that Latina who used to do the weather on channel 9 interviews home decorators on death row. Even though we tape everything Annie still watches it live. She also hasn’t been too keen on me lately. She wouldn’t even look at me the last time we had sex, and a person has to work pretty hard not to look at the person they’re having sex with. I think she hurt her neck actually. She’s got a bad neck bone. It doesn’t make me love her less but it does make me pretty sad sack sorry for myself.

I used to be a thin person and then sometime during cancer year I’d become a fat person. I really started to notice it in the shower. This one evening I was in there before bed and was thinking about masturbating but also spent forever cleaning my torso which had become really hairy and that must have been what first got me worried because no guys on TV have hair on their guts. This stuff was black and tightly curled like dick-area hair. I couldn’t get even a piece of a hard because of the dick-area hair that was everywhere and when I tried to suck my stomach in to feel a little better about the hair it didn’t really go in which hadn’t ever happened before. When I tried again I really gave it some effort while straining to look at myself in the tiny mirror next to the showerhead, and no dice. We’re talking Tummy City. I watched the water roll down my belly and all the fur I’d sprouted with absolutely no horny feelings until I got cold.

Ever since then I’ve resigned myself to being a tubby guy. From the way I slump around the house checking on the contents of the fridge, secretly hoping that a treat mysteriously might appear from behind the containers filled with leftovers from Annie’s lunches with the girls from church – Oh goodness an éclair I’d say – a truly grade-A chubbo, and pop it in my mouth with the joy reserved only for the hairy fat and stupid who walk zombielike to the fridge only 20 minutes after dinner to betray their rationality because they want cream filling so bad they’ll try and will it into being.

This fall is no good.

I really hope I remembered to charge the phone. There is no way I’ll get a cab with this mess all over me, no way, Annie’s gonna pick me up and that’s it. I’m making the law. And why can’t she tell me to quit it if she’s so concerned about a few beers or whatever? And what do I come here for in the first place? The beer isn’t super great and the food is way too expensive and rubbery. The wasabi leaks. Like when you don’t shake the mustard bottle before you try to put it on your sandwich and that watery stuff gets everywhere? That’s what this wasabi is.

The bartender emerges from where they make the not impressive wasabi carrying a small beach towel. It has Tweety Birds in various sports uniforms all over it and is baby blue.

He smiles and blankets the towel over my chest.

“Please sir you are not trying move please. We call ambulance already, will come soon. Yes please.”

I try to talk to him but the words don’t really come out right. They sound like farts or animal noises more than “leave me alone pal” which is what I am trying to say. I let him keep petting me with the towel. His face is really close to my mouth and his bozo haircut makes it look like he’s been electrocuted and then decided This is the look. With this style of hair, I, a human male person, am looking presentable!

I am having a bad day. So is this guy though.

When Annie was driving off in the Lexus I could tell she knew something was gonna happen. She always knows! I swear the woman must be a psychic, which would be hilarious because she’s so religious and that’s probably not allowed at her church.

A group of people are standing above me like a pyramid. I think I can make these fart/animal things coming out of my mouth turn back to English if I try really hard. I should have noticed how everyone who eats here is white. White people don’t care about leaky wasabi.

Except for the employees everyone else is whispering. I’ve turned a bad sushi restaurant into church.

Oh fuck me twice. Craig is here with Hanna.

Craig was a client of mine until his daughter Hanna got into a big accident last year and our insurance company refused to pay for it because she had been on her phone. This was right after they changed the law in California and Craig was super pissed. I think he’s with Insure Geeks now because of their big “United we Text” campaign. If you have a smart-phone related accident on your record you can still get insurance for like, $50 bucks a month. I think Insure Geeks are pretty close to bankruptcy. I especially hate their mascot which is a raccoon in a toupee and a lab coat. His name is Rocko I.G. Buttertoes and he is more successful than most of the people I know. The I.G. stands for Insure Geeks, which you learn in the commercial where Rocko gets an honorary doctorate from Harvard for creating a potion that turns the DUIs on his driving record into a sexy lady raccoon.

“Check it out he pissed himself” Craig whispers not quietly.

The bartender, now gently petting me, asks, “Sir your pee is fine?”

“Fart fart bark fart” I say back and Craig is eating this up. I can’t move my head to check and see how much I peed which is a concern. Actually I can’t really move anything? Is it bad to not feel my body? I think it’s bad to not feel my body but it’s worse to have to look at Craig’s fat face. At least Craig has probably been fat his whole life.

When Annie got the news I ate nothing but drive-thru and spent my free time sitting around waiting for her to die. What I didn’t realize about being fat is I hate myself.

“He’s broken something serious,” a guy eating a spring roll says.

I am waiting for the pain to set in but it doesn’t come. Everywhere is buzzing. I smell my pee now and it’s worse than the vomit. My phone is inches away from my left hand and I can’t get to it. God. I can’t move at all.

At our wedding there was about a minute during the vows that a bee kept buzzing near Annie’s cleavage. I was trying hard to look her in the eyes, to be totally present, but I couldn’t stop worrying about the goddamned bee. She said she never saw it.

She used to walk everywhere. The weather being what it is here and us living near downtown, she loved the extra time outside. I think she got lots of attention from it too, given most people are attached to their cars. A pretty blonde with nice legs breaks up the monotony of being stuck in traffic downtown.

She found the mass because her friend Gwen is a hypochondriac. Gwen had a mole on her left boob and was convinced it was malignant so she went to every doctor within earshot and told them to diagnose her with cancer and none of them did because she didn’t have cancer she just had a gross mole. Gwen needed to fill the not-having-cancer void so she became a cancer evangelist. She convinced Annie to get her breasts checked.

I only remember flashes of the treatment. Hair in the drain. The smell of leftover McDonald’s in the car. Driving her bras to the dumpster down the street so she wouldn’t accidentally see them in our own trash.

The paramedics burst through the door and push Craig out of the way, which is nice. They ask me a bunch of questions and I respond with my noises and they stop asking me questions. They put a huge brace on my neck and cut my shirt open. They are beautiful and they are my friends.

One of them steps on my phone. The screen shatters but I don’t even care. I just want to go back home and then back and back and back to when I was young and she was healthy and we ate meals together.

The sushi guy is now taking the lead, “he fall down, was bad. Crack his back, big time. He can’t move.”

The medics gather around me like pallbearers at a casket. They lift me slightly and slide a plank under my back. They put a mask on my face and tell me not to talk.

The mask is very large and it smells like a new car. It is cool and it is soft and I am very tired.

On the way to the ambulance I see the sky. It’s summer school blue and did I tell you Annie has these knockout blue eyes? When I was still too scared to ask her out I’d think about how great those eyes would be to look at every day and that sort of positive thinking helped me get less scared. On our first date we went to watch the planes. There used to be a diner near the gates that had a big window facing the runways. She loved resting her eyes on the planes as they ascended – scanning the angles they’d take as they ran headfirst into the clouds.

She’d keep an eye on the clouds for a few seconds after they disappeared. The window was real thick so you couldn’t hear much of the engines but you could really feel them in your gut. The big thunder waiting at your feet until leaping like a child towards your beating, living heart.

Pink Sundays

He closes a cabbage moth in the cave two toddler hands make. The wing life fluttering for a way out the Wednesday before I die in the fire I’ve been promised. Sky drops a freckle. We are ready to quit the park. There is shame in the grass we leave behind. He opens his hands to me, a gentle dust stain on his palm & asks what happened

The tree is sick. The tree is why he bought the house & it is filled with white flies. He pokes the scab bark & nothing happens. A man charges $300 to poke the scab bark & nothing happens. The flies are too small. Black leaves slop against the windows. The death will be a block party that lasts several months & is silent as a fence

We are four bowls of uneaten cheerios. He is in the corner, a page in his mouth. We listen for the bitter grape of the neighbors’ TV. How do you woman like this? He opens his fruit mouth. There is nothing but the black streak of the corpse tree. The page still dry I bend to read. It says the fire will taste

There is no color in my nightgown. When the Santa Ana wind comes I kiss what mother taught me, sweet terrible, lips parted the aperture of pearl. We speak honeymoon Spanish until he forces a long suck & gems & bitter throat & sound. Jade, amber, sapphire. These are fingers underneath. Feed me that fucking diamond

Nothing is wrong because here is a French bread pizza. I put the cheesy wrapper in the trunk. I put coconuts in the trunk. None of you fuckers read my play but here is a piece of my stomach for you to watch. Here is the anglerfish from your night terror & here is special underwear for your stupid kidneys. There was never blood in your soda pop & God didn’t tell me your name

Either I vomit on the cat or the cat vomits on the floor. Nothing is real except the big happening. I fixed the Bible for us so you can kiss me with your eyes open I miss you. Que lastima mi amor, que lastima mi arbol. Don’t look in the trunk. I am so sorry about the fat. I am so sorry I vomited your stinking heart

I say Cadillac is beautiful. Soft maroon leather never demands what is pink inside my bones. He and he and he among us. I am smitten by the algae in our dirty lake. Finally there is joy at the end pieces of bread. The two recite commercials as they rip. Give the wet birds my lunch, I can’t wait to see my skull

 

It’s important to be happy about how sad you are

Last night I couldn’t sleep

and for the first time in a few weeks I noticed how beautiful

the woman in the picture I keep on my bookshelf is.

I don’t know who this woman is for sure but I think we’re related

because I found the picture in my grandfather’s sock drawer

a few days after he died when I was going through all his things

because I didn’t know what else to do.

But what I want to ask you is have you heard the El trains today?

They’re still up after all these years.

But what I want to ask you is you know when you think your phone made a noise

but when you check it you realize it didn’t make a noise and that instead the noise or the vibration

or whatever you thought you heard or saw was just in your head.

And probably it is a manifestation of your desire to be connected to people more

which is so beautiful I love you so much because you are filled with blood

 

and God made you a scrapbook of all the times you avoided eye contact

with somebody on the street asking for change.

They actually made a Facebook album and it’s titled

“everybody does this all the time but the key is to feel bad about it.”

 

Just kidding there is no God and you can’t use that many words in a Facebook album title anyway.

You only have 40 characters.

And God wouldn’t be mean to you because they love you.

 

This one time a man asked me for change at the LaSalle blue line station and I had 40 dollars in my pocket so I told the man no and he paused and then asked do you have any change and I said no and he paused and asked do you have any change and I said I do but that I didn’t want to give it to him and he asked me why I lied to him twice and I said it was easier than telling him I didn’t love him and he said why did I lie to him and I said what do you mean and he said Raul I know you love me and he gave me a kiss on the cheek and we stood there while 10,000 trains came and went and I called him father and he called me a beautiful pile of feelings and when I think about him my fingers turn pink.

 

Oh I forgot to tell you that every night we all have the same dream but can’t remember it

but I cut a hole in the ground beneath my apartment and dug my way down

to where all the bones are

and saw that they spelled out

“the dream is that we are the same person”

so guess what you’re my twin! Isn’t that great?

 

But what I want to ask you is why can’t we recognize

when someone is saying I love you in our immediate proximity.

I don’t mean when our mom says it to our dad or when our dog says it to our garbage can

or when our hair says it to our comb but when everyone in a crowd says it

quietly inside themselves. Is it because we haven’t read the bones right?

Hold on: I think my phone is trying to tell me something.

 

 

Status update: Sanity is the first time leaflets curl out of wood

Status update: Sanity is the song you can’t get out of your head after a particularly incredible make out session with someone you just met.

Status update: Sanity is a little bug you are too tired to deal with right now

Oh my god you are my best friend today! Oh my god it’s so unfair that there are more people than homes. If only we could make more homes!

To celebrate making it through another Thursday I made you a necklace that says youth culture forever and a bracelet that says taco party at my place.

If you want to know why I’m being coy it’s because when my mother tried to kill herself it didn’t work because I am one of the lucky ones and she’s a great mom.

I told her I was writing this poem and asked if it’d be okay to get a statement from her for it and she said “honey you can have anything you want because I love you.” I know I’ve said I love you too many times in this poem but it’s okay because it’s a rhetorical device. Rhetorical devices are language tricks you can use to tell people you love them.

What I’m saying is if there is anything worthwhile about growing up religious it’s that you will never stop believing in magic no matter what you tell yourself.

What I’m saying is saying that you’re saying things can be a political act or even something else.

 

I have a dear friend who sleeps in my bed when his insides are on fire because my bed is all the oceans.

I have a dear friend who calls me every night at 3am to tell me what the moon is doing.

I have a dear friend whose eyes are made of very shy birds.

I have a dear friend who eats clouds for breakfast.

I have a dear friend who wants your teeth to be her teeth.

I have a dear friend who lives inside a bus and you can ask for a ride anytime and they’ll take you to wherever you need to go because they love driving.

I have a dear friend who got the phrase SENTIMENTALITY RULES inside his lip and if you have a problem with this poem you can go talk to him.

This is something: you can be friends with someone you just met if the rain holds up. This is something: you can be friends with someone even if you’re both comprised of broken pieces. The pieces still work fine, I promise.

 

Oh God!

Is there anything like the summer? I think so

 

I think you are

 

when you’re still alive because we say

your name so often. So much can be erased by not saying.

But you’re here because we’re chatterboxes, sweetheart.

 

Sleep is okay if you’re into playing dead, but saying

YOU YOU YOU

is better.

 

 

A Quasi-Helpful Guide to Chicago

Hello Family, I am very excited to have you come visit the incredible city of Chicago! Culture here is pretty different from the best-coast, so I wanted to give you a little primer on what to expect when you’re here. I hope this helps you plan your visit!

IN CHICAGO, THE WEATHER IS SLIGHTLY AGGRESSIVE 

A typical Monday morning on Lake Shore Drive

Beautiful Lake Michigan! Just like the Pacific Ocean, but with more Ice-Trees 

Firefighters wonder, “how is a fire happening?” at this Chicago warehouse

DRESS FOR SUCCESS (MEANING PUT ON EVERYTHING YOU OWN, PROBABLY?)

[image error] [image error]

I recently had a great conversation with my grandmother. She said, “oh Raulie it’s been terribly cold in Fullerton! You wouldn’t believe it. It was THREE degrees last night!” I laughed and said, “Grandma, I love you, but you’re being an insane person. The current temperature is 78 degrees where you are. Here, it’s -8 with 25 mile per hour winds and we’re getting lake effect snow. If you were to stand outside unprotected, you would develop frostbite in under 30 minutes.”

I say this to stress the importance of understanding that you are not ready for the weather here, no matter what grandma says. It should be much warmer in February than it is now, but please, for your own happiness and safety, don’t think, “oh it got CHILLY last night and I was wearing flip-flops and jean shorts… so I should be good!” You won’t be good.

Here is a helpful guide to dressing for winter weather.

 

The guy needs a hat and gloves, but the girl is dressed like a champ!

CHICAGO IS A REALLY JUST A SERIES OF NEIGHBORHOODS

The city of Chicago is divided into 77 unofficial neighborhoods. Each of these neighborhoods has its own unique culture, pace, demographics, and strengths. While you’re here, we will be visiting several of these neighborhoods. Here are a few you’ll definitely experience.

LOGAN SQUARE

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Logan Square is the neighborhood I ‘m moving to in a few days. Longman and Eagle, the restaurant I used to work at, is in this neighborhood, as are many of my friends. Logan Square is undergoing some tumultuous gentrification, which is something people talk about in different ways. I personally love this neighborhood’s mix of working class no-nonsense attitude and artist-class all-nonsense attitude. Neighborhood attractions include Yusho, Analogue, Parts and Labor, Lula Cafe, the Logan Theatre, and Animal Kingdom.

 

UKRAINIAN VILLAGE

 

I lived in Ukrainian Village for 3 years. It’s lovely and small and has a boatload of Eastern Europeans who really, really don’t like people who aren’t Eastern European! There is beautiful architecture everywhere, including very old Chicago homes (pre-Chicago fire) and insanely large churches. Local attractions include Bite Cafe, the Empty Bottle, the Rainbo Club, and Hoosier Mama Pie Company.

PILSEN

Pilsen is hands down the most beautiful neighborhood in Chicago. For decades Pilsen has been a bastion of Mexican-American culture, and the result is a neighborhood that is unbelievably colorful, vibrant, and dynamic. However, Pilsen is a microcosm for a large scale Chicago problem: hyper-segregation. The city of Chicago has been institutionally planned in such a way as to keep white and non-white neighborhoods separate. In Pilsen, the predominantly (and politically) Chicano culture is at odds with a seeping gentrification of middle-class Caucasians who have been driven out of neighborhoods like Wicker Park and Ukrainian Village because of sky-rocketing rent prices.

Just look at this place:

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THE INEVITABILITY OF DOWNTOWN CHICAGO

We’ll also go downtown, because that’s where the big buildings are. But we don’t need to spend too much time here. It’s not that exciting.

WE HAVE VERY INTROSPECTIVE RAPPERS

If you like music, it’s probably from Chicago. Well, okay. That’s not totally true. But really, it probably is. 

Anyway, artists here tend towards self-reflection, for whatever reason. I suspect the weather probably has a lot to do with it.

 

 

 THERE ARE LOTS OF THINGS TO DO IN CHICAGO

Oy, this is getting long! Here are some great articles that feature different places we can try:

20 Great Bars That Ellyn Can Still Get a Diet Coke At 

The Best New Restaurants 

10 Pretty Good Coffee Shops 

A Few Good Venues And Also A Few Terrible Ones 

There Are Bookstores 

Do You Like Public Radio? This American Life? Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me? We Do!

An Ethnography of Hipsterdom, Courtesy of the Reader 

 

SOMETHING I’VE NOTICED

On a national level, Chicago is painted as an underdog that is consistently being outdone by NYC and LA. But in the context of the Midwest, it is the opposite. Here, Chicago is a monolith that sucks the actual talent AWAY from other locales. Two examples: We took the Onion from Madison, and then New York took the Onion from us. Students from Minneapolis created Pitchfork, and then moved to Chicago, where we got credit for it. Now Pitchfork is mostly operated out of Brooklyn. Ultimately, most of the actual creativity in the United States gestates in the “flyover states” and then is credited to a big city. This is why, when anyone bad mouths places like Missouri, Minnesota, or Iowa, you should always correct them. It is these states that make our cities so interesting.

 

MALORT IS GREAT OR AWFUL

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Malort is a spirit that is only sold in Chicago. This is from its Wikipedia page:

Most first-time drinkers of Jeppson Malort reject our liquor. Its strong, sharp taste is not for everyone. Our liquor is rugged and unrelenting (even brutal) to the palate. During almost 60 years of American distribution, we found only 1 out of 49 men will drink Jeppson Malort. During the lifetime of our founder, Carl Jeppson was apt to say, ‘My Malort is produced for that unique group of drinkers who disdain light flavor or neutral spirits.’

It is not possible to forget our two-fisted liquor. The taste just lingers and lasts – seemingly forever. The first shot is hard to swallow! PERSEVERE. Make it past two ‘shock-glasses’ and with the third you could be ours…forever”

It tastes like sour fire? Does that make sense? You’ll find out.

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Perfect Speech for the End of a Movie

We need to change the way we talk about things

We can’t pretend to be the greatest

We aren’t a football team there are real stakes

 

We are a collection of

do good and do evil

 

We are all packed

in the city universe

 

We are shredding into glitter

 

Be brave

Put me in danger

 

We are dead

We are slow burn

 

Raphael was the kids name right? he wanted to hurt me because I was gay. Well, he thought I was anyway. I didn’t think I was gay but was scared I was wrong. I was always scared of things getting out of my control. I don’t know how to talk about molestation. I am not sure how to be brave about it because it already happened. There is no more bravery needed.

 

 I didn’t know it was going to get in here. I can’t stop it now. It’s happening

 

How to put the protest in here? How to put that I love you. I love you so much, but I don’t want to have to work

 

I never get halfway

through my morning

 

Few words can make

a line break. Don’t

go out tonight you have

to die later

 

We need a way into this

 

Notes on Process

 

 

1. Positioned face down on bed with head and arms off edge of bed holding a new book on carpet below with hands around both edges so the book can’t close shut

2. Words do not initially enjoy the sensation of being read

3. The spine has not yet been broken into like an apple

4. The election of Rahm Emmanuel whose last name means GOD WITH US

5. עִמָּנוּאֵל

6. A Christmas play I did in church fifteen years ago when still in California

7. A boy from the play is still a friend of mine

8. He moved to Chicago

9. We do not see each other often

10. I will place my thoughts on hold during the following: dreamless sleep, routine, familiar television, feeding, submission, apathy, liturgy, laughter, lust, inebriation, possession, murder, pain, shame

11. Some dreams are terrifying until they aren’t

12. In her poem ROAST BEEF Gertrude Stein pulls from her experience of looking at/eating roast beef in order to make roast beef that can never be looked at or eaten

13. She isn’t a farmer. She isn’t a butcher

14. Insufficient punctuation is aesthetic and also lingering control issues stemming from being a person

15. “Do I wish myself in the deepest unconscious or subconscious layers of my being to be the founder of a new religion?”

16. Again sun dirty mouth in the morning sleep headed socks to the eating of breakfast the calming of an ill disciplined stomach again a shower brushing sweating imperceptible both working and fretting chores cleaning of the daily space delusions of grandeur conversationally off and on stooping towards the ground farting when alone ticthe clock moving earnestly some idle goal somewhere just beyond a reaching towards bed

17. Most of the content in literary journals is well written in away that screams ACKNOWLEDGE THAT I AM WELL WRITTEN

18. When there was a God there was a God

19. “I’m in the corner watching you kiss her ohhhhhhhh! I’m right over here why can’t you see me ohhhhhhhh!”

20. The pleasant clack of jewel cases while filtering through them while riding shotgun in a car surrounded by friends is what divides the old guard of Millennials from the new

21. Microsoft Word does not recognize the word Millennial yet

22. You are a tender button I keep on my tongue to keep it quiet when all it wants is to be loud

23. In the book A MOVEABLE FEAST the chapter EVAN SHIPMAN AT THE LILAS is the best and I would fight Hemingway himself if he disagreed and you know that bastard would love that shit because he is prolifically gendered

24. There is a copy of McSweeneys that has been on my coffee table for years and I have only read 23 pages of it

25. A person can never truly escape from their mother

26. For someone who thinks empathy is the most important human quality I write the I in nearly every work I write

27. He has moved back to California

28. In successful poems the YOU should enjoy being trapped

29. One of my warmest memories is when I was told by the girl that agreed to go to prom with me that she did not want to go anymore because she realized I actually like liked her and she did not like like me like that and we had this conversation in a very large Tower Records where we sat in the travel book section and she was wearing a green sweater and cried but not until after I said I was okay because this is a run of the mill American memory and it makes me feel connected to being an American

30. Understand the opposite of the thing to understand the thing itself

31. X has noticed Y in the park eating a sandwich far too big Y X has noticed Y is out of toilet paper X has noticed Y has a bloody forearm indicating self harm X has noticed Y has a degree from a lesser university X has noticed Y has no food for the cat X has noticed Y is not speaking in proper English

32. I think nostalgia is ruining my objectivity but I think I am wrong

33. The wife myth is central to the identity of the Christian male

34. If you are looking for a word for your work you are probably not fully engaged in this but also I totally get it and you should try YOLKY

35. A normal reaction to very nice breasts is whatever you or I want it to be unless of course it is not

36. Attack that Borges collection

37. The small succulent I used to keep on one of our speakers died a long time ago and I can not remember what it looked like but I know it existed because I wrote about it once

38. “The small succulent we keep on the speaker is almost entirely dead. God Leonard Cohen is good writing music!”

39. Fucking anthologists

40. It is hard to accept that no one cares about my childhood

41. “I wish I had a sun tan I wish I had a pizza and a bottle of wine”

42. If I were to tie my thoughts together would they make a little chain or could I even build anything with them or the smallest thing I could build would be a dust holder or something to put your dust in or something little for dust

43. There is no God and I am not a famous person

44. Show don’t tell

45. Do good towards every insignificant thing always until you are dead

46. “Better get the trick of throwing the whole back into the melting pot and recasting all in one piece. It is better than patching.”

47. Salt beds are a thing you do not forget seeing for the first time because they are geologically impressive and we are powerless

48. “That man was a devil in a past life don’t be like that man”

49. The song Ashley by Yo La Tengo is the song Green Arrow by Yo La Tengo

50. When you see God you will believe you have gone insane and I will be there holding you forever on my tongue