7

This is what I look like today:






& I'm going to go get coffee with Jodie, probably.

6

Current inspiration-- Oliviero Toscani's "controversial" advertisements for United Colors of Benetton:

5

I write you letters. I write you letters to say, “I miss you.” I write you letters to say, “I love you.” I stop writing letters, when you ask me to. I write you again in a year, to let you know that I haven’t forgotten.

The prayers I give to leaves I rip off trees. To water that stays still & has fish in it. To clouds that cover everything like the apocalypse is coming. To books with yellow pages. To the little holes that form in my clothes. “Come back.”

You. There are five of you. I count you, when I am walking alone. I find you, in the places I can. I sing songs to you, until I am out of breath.

I do. I do. I swear, I do.

4

She says,
"I remember the way love
used to glow like glitter on my skin,
before he made his way in.
Now every touch feels like a sin
that could crucify Medusa, Kali, Oshun, Mary.
Bury me in a blue blanket
so their god doesn't know I'm a girl,
cut off my curls,
I want peace when I'm dead."
Her friend knocks at the door,
"it's been three weeks,
don't you think it's time you got out of bed?"
"No.
The ceiling fan still feels like his breath.
I think I need just a couple more days of rest.
Please."
Bruises on her knees from praying to forget.


I'm tired of wanting to float on my back under the stars, alone,
just so my skin will smell of chlorine, just so I'll feel clean.
I'm tired of wanting to skin myself,
just so I can regrow, just so I'll feel clean.

3

The actor lay back in the grass & forced laughter from his throat. This was his read on grief. Josie thought doing nothing would have been more realistic. When your girlfriend dies in a car accident, it takes a while to believe it. The realization comes later, when you understand you will never see her again. When you go to wash the clothes, & there are her clothes, & you don't know whether to wash them or not, & you think, not, because that would mean fewer particles of her existing in the world, the smell of her body which was now underground, that particular scent will never happen again.

2

What the fuck is going on?
What am I doing here?
I don't belong here.

1

I love you the most. Fellows don't know how to love like girls. You don't even know how to spell it. My darling.