What a wretched house in a wretched place With wretched wood, Wretched walls, Wretched water   What a wretched house in a wretched place Sitting in the dark woods, Water cold as winter, so cold it stings Old table, old chairs, Broken wood Wood not meant for kindling, but meant to be consumed all the…

Dollar Tree finally closed It outlived Chuck-E-Cheese But probably had just as much piss stains Only difference is that in Dollar Tree it was largely adult urine staining the crevices of the aisles— God bless Dollar Tree for not having carpet everywhere You can mop sticky But Chuck-E-Cheese probably didn’t have enough coffee To sop…

It was a Tuesday, and the man saw a pigeon. A pigeon was flying around over his head. He kept track of its travel by following it with his finger, tracing the trail it left, etching its marks in the sky so the pigeon’s movements would be saved in the clouds in case another bird…

The phantasmagoria ends, The curtain falls. The phantasmagoria ends, The arcades close. The PHANTASMAGORIA ENDS, but this isn’t Paris. It’s not on fire anymore. I. disclaimer “THIS IS A [poem] ABOUT NEW YORK. IT MAY BE BRIEFLY DESCRIBED AS CONCERNING THE VICES AND LURES THAT THE CITY PROFFERED TO THE LOWER CLASSES IN THE [twentieth]…

Confession New York, 1972 Ricky was shaking in the confessional booth, hands clutching a rosary she bought from the dollar store. Wave after wave of nausea crept up her throat, and she did her best to keep the bile down. “How does this work, actually? I was raised Protestant, so I’ve never set foot in…

the Autocannibalist’s dinner Tonight I ate my tears. They tasted salty, the taste hitting my tongue with a sharpness that felt like glass. They were falling from my eyes and I had nowhere else to put them but my mouth. Tonight I ate my heart. It was tough, red and rare, just like a steak.…

You are not an individual. You are a collective. One might say you are legion, but I can’t bring myself to demonize you. You are the same as you always have been. You come over, we meet for the first time, again. I take you in, more than you do me, and— you leave. I…

Ten There’s a piece of gum that won’t get off my shoe no matter how hard I scrape it against the sidewalk. I think it attached itself to my shoe a few blocks back.It’s Sunday, and I’m listening to Ellie ramble like I always do whenever her brain goes too fast. As she paces back…

i. sittin pretty the boys are taking me ‘round the city all i have to do is sit and look pretty the city’s big and moves fast, really, so the boys are taking me ‘round the city the girls are taking me ‘round the town all i have to do is look pretty and sit…

I wrote love poems when I wasn’t in love. I was yearning for it; I look back on those poems and know that the person who wrote them didn’t know what they were talking about. Granted, neither do I. They wrote about making jewelry out of flowers and cigarettes, about people they barely met who…