Dear S–,

Your parents didn’t write me back. I didn’t expect them to. I mean I sort of expected them to but that was silly. I think I’d hoped they might. I think I was looking for redemption. There is no redemption. You and I we did what we did and you were blameless, I think considering that you suffered the ultimate price Even if you did do it to yourself. You didn’t do it all to yourself, though. Wouldn’t it be funny if I tried to make a chart about what you deserved and what you didn’t?

Everyone here is younger than us except for the people who are older but they are younger to. They don’t know.

Eat Pray Giggle
Live Laugh Love

I am 43. You were 43 once but I’m catching up now. Coffee and tea and the games we never played. I took a picture of myself the day you died because I was trying to stop time. I took a picture of the day your body was found because I was trying to stop time.

“Let’s Play.”
I’m not done losing you.

My elbows rest on the
windowsill, painted hard
white, and through its glass
conjoined flowers bloom
between rocks backlit by
dusk.

We are friction, softening. 

Daddy,

I would like your permission to marry Dennis Wilson.

I know he has a reputation as a “bad boy” but I really think he’s outgrown all of that, considering he’s been dead since I was five. I’m sure he’s spent much of that time since maturing and probably regretting some of his choices.

I know you like Brian better. Everyone does. But have you heard Dennis’s solo album? Did you ever give him a chance?

And, yes, there are the women. He’s been with a lot of them. But guess what, Dad. I’ve been with a lot of them, too.

In conclusion, I really feel like Dennis is the one for me and I hope when he comes to you in some dream sometime soon and asks for my hand in marriage you’ll say yes. He’s gotta be better than the last one.

Love,
Alison Bell

Colorado pinyon pine
Don’t let it own you
Ricolite

Okamora Roshi
Junyu Kuroda 

Hold still, man.

HOPE IS A WORD LIKE A SNOWDRIFT

When you start questioning yourself, STOP. 

Is it about being frustrated that you aren’t allowed to play with very dangerous materials unsupervised and unrestricted?
Yes, in a manner of speaking.

Life in the blindspot of a truck

All poems are orgasms but not all orgasms are poems.

You fucked me and it felt better than anything has felt in one million trillion thousand years, like I don’t think anything has ever felt that good since the dinosaurs and I don’t know what the dinosaurs ever felt but I’ve never been as sick as then, at least not in recent memory and I wonder what it would be like to be a dinosaur with you, raptors together because I’m assuming we’d be raptors although maybe not, you might be a Tyrannosaurus Rex but you would have tiny arms so likewise we probably still would wait for the next round and what if we, as raptors, became a Valentine’s Day card and then died, just saying like what if the astroid hit while we were becoming a Valentine’s Day card for the next raptors, wrapping around each other tangled and confused and so so simple?

American Sentence: Looking at the grey sky makes me feel so exposed

Half of my life is gone and I have let it go. I’ve plucked some pieces from it like chocolate chips from batter and pushed them into my cheeks, daring them to melt, reveling in the melting, mourning the melting, collecting the mournfulness.

Two years ago, three years ago, I was here, writing letters beside the empty swimming pool and here I am now, writing letters beside the empty pool. The surfers are still here. Different surfers? The same surfers? How have another three years passed? How has an other decade passed?

This morning I woke up at seven then went back to sleep until nine. I made eggs and coffee took a big swig of orange juice straight from the container. A year ago I didn’t drink orange juice. Four years ago I would have eaten overnight oats, no coffee. Twelve years ago it was two soft boiled eggs with salt; 25 years ago, cereal at noon. Everything changes eventually, even the things that last forever.

After Auschwitz
        Anne Sexton

Anger,
as black as a hook,
overtakes me.
Each day,
each Nazi
took, at 8: 00 A.M., a baby
and sauteed him for breakfast
in his frying pan.

And death looks on with a casual eye
and picks at the dirt under his fingernail.

Man is evil,
I say aloud.
Man is a flower
that should be burnt,
I say aloud.
Man
is a bird full of mud,
I say aloud.

And death looks on with a casual eye
and scratches his anus.

Man with his small pink toes,
with his miraculous fingers
is not a temple
but an outhouse,
I say aloud.
Let man never again raise his teacup.
Let man never again write a book.
Let man never again put on his shoe.
Let man never again raise his eyes,
on a soft July night.
Never. Never. Never. Never. Never.
I say those things aloud.

I beg the Lord not to hear.

There’s new bedding on the bed and a bevy of origami chickens on both nightstands.

There’s a plate from my first wedding’s registry, the wedding with my first ex-husband, I can now say, can soon say, beside the computer with the last licks of sweet potato stuffed with quinoa and chick peas and parsley and goat cheese and I forget what else.

I finished Grace and Frankie today. That last episode was destined to fail but it didn’t do it too badly. I watch TV during the day more than I used to but I make up for it at night. And then I sleep and sleep and sleep.

I replaced the umbrella and the wifi extender and relocated so many small things.

Sweet potato stuffed with quinoa and chick peas and stuff.

I dreamt that the kids were multiplying and the chickens were in danger Duck under the bridge! I said when the kids woke me up and Aubrey said What? And Ella said She wants us to put the duck under the bridge! and then I had to wake up for real.

I clipped Phoenix’s wings and she doesn’t fly over the neighbor’s fence anymore.