They’ll never say that about me again ⦾ I’ve been living like this for so long that I’m used to it ⦾ I’m in the shower, my head leaning against the tile ⦾ The water runs down my face, down my neck ⦾ My hands are moving through my hair, searching for knots ⦾ I massage my scalp ⋯ I massage my face ⦾ I run water down my breasts and stomach, then back up again ⦾ I lean forward and kiss the spray from above

When I'm in the water, eyes closed, I see the world like I'm looking through a telescope ⦾ I feel this way when I'm in the water ⋯ a sharp ringing in my ears ⋯ a sense of being watched ⋯ God's birds circling overhead, but not visible through the water ⦾ As if I were alone on the lake, but was somebody else under the surface

I ran to my mother one afternoon, to tell her that I was leaving ⦾ I told her that I'd been working for hours, just to get here ⦾ I told her that my job had given me no meaning, and that I was ready to move on ⦾ Even as I spoke, she studied my face — the way my cheekbones moved against my skin, the way my eyes seemed to stare into the distance ⦾ I can't believe you got this far, she said

I'm the girl who ripped her shirt off ⋯ the girl who left her bra on ⦾ In a moment of weakness I thought, What if? ⦾ I'm a girl who talks to the mirror ⋯ a girl who fucks herself up in public ⋯ a girl who loves to get high ⋯ a girl who is getting high right now

They'll never say that about me again ⦾ I'm the girl who took her clothes off ⋯ the girl who took her bra off ⦾ In a moment of weakness I thought, What if? ⦾ With a new boyfriend, I asked him, What would you do? ⦾ He said, I'd kiss you up and down. ⦾ I thought, That sounds pretty good. ⦾ I'm a girl who kisses herself up and down ⋯ a girl who kisses herself up and down

I was in a room with a woman ⦾ It wasn’t love ⋯ it was an arrangement that made sense ⦾ She had this way of looking at me ⋯ like she knew me ⦾ She said, I always knew you'd be something important. ⦾ I said, I'm sorry? She said, You'll understand someday. ⦾ She smiled and then laughed. The sound was old and silver ⦾ She said, Don't worry about it. You'll understand someday. ⦾ She winked at me and smoothed her hair back behind her ear ⦾ Then she left the room. I didn't see her again that day ⦾ That night, I thought about how much I wanted to kiss her

The size of my teeth ⋯ the luster of my eyes ⋯ the girth of my arms ⋯ the waves of my thighs ⋯ the purr of my voice ⦾ My skin, the softness of it, the ebb and flow of it ⦾ My hair, the fire of it, the sheen of it, the weight and length of it ⦾ For the sake of the warmth I give them and myself, I stay cool ⦾ I've been waiting for this, honey ⋯ I have paid the price for the lie ⦾ I have lived my life like I was one of them, but I'm not and never will be ⦾ I'm a woman who goes to the barbecue ⋯ my stained white blouse goes with the ribs ⦾ Don't I look out of place? I'm supposed to be dead by now

She's everybody's baby-sitter ⋯ but nobody's baby ⦾ She is the baby-sitter you call, because you have nowhere else to go ⦾ She always answers the phone ⋯ So sorry, I'm already booked. ⦾ She's the one who says, I'm sorry, I can't make it tonight, but would you like me to come tomorrow? ⦾ And then she's the one who says, You're a smart boy. You know your life. Take care of yourself. ⦾ She's the girl you might have met before ⋯ but can't remember her name ⦾ Her name is Yolanda ⋯ She's a night virtuoso ⦾ She's a devil-may-care vixen in a satin slip ⦾ She's a tall blonde with an uncanny resemblance to Oprah Winfrey ⦾ She's what you get when you cross the Cocteau Twins with Madonna

She's a pop star ⋯ and she's not an ingenue ⦾ She's a brilliant singer ⋯ but nobody wants to hear her sing ⦾ She's a character in a play ⋯ but it's not a farce ⦾ She's a favorite actress ⋯ but she's not in Hollywood ⦾ She's a political critic ⋯ but nobody's political ⦾ She's a writer of foreign affairs ⋯ but nobody cares about foreign affairs ⦾ She's a historian of the arts ⋯ but nobody's interested in the arts ⦾ She's an art historian who writes novels ⋯ but everybody's heard the novels already ⦾ She's a beauty, with a good mind, who can sing and play the piano ⋯ but she doesn't care ⦾ She's a painter in her own right ⋯ but nobody wants to see her paintings ⦾ She's an artist who has been in several museums ⋯ but nobody knows who she is ⦾ She's not a politician herself ⋯ but she works for one ⦾ She's Robert Johnson and Jimi Hendrix ⋯ an atomic weapon ⋯ a bullet splitting a watermelon

She's a high school student with an unhealthy fixation. She's a teenage girl who, by her own admission, has made promises to God that she cannot keep ⦾ She's got a lollypop and a red ribbon, a yellow, sickly smile ⦾ She's got a white sheet and a black hood ⋯ she's got a gas-mask with a red snout ⦾ She's your best friend's best friend and your girlfriend's girlfriend and if you're lucky, she'll give you a beer ⦾ It doesn't matter what kind of mood you're in or how fucked up you are, she's everyone's drink ⦾ She'll drive you home from the bar in her car ⦾ In the backseat, she'll have your beer but she won't let you touch it ⦾ Because it's her beer too

She's a bad girl, but she really loves her mom ⦾ She's a bag lady, but she wears Armani ⦾ She's a cloned centaur, but she's just a clone ⦾ She's an invisible woman, but she's become a woman ⦾ She's a prostitute, but she only cares about money ⦾ She's the cuckoo bird, but she spent the summer in Morocco ⦾ She's the daughter of a scientist, but she's more of an artist ⦾ She's a refugee, but all she wants is to be an artist ⦾ She's an actress, but she'd rather be an artist ⦾ She's an alien princess, but she just keeps her head down ⦾ She's a mime, but no one believes she ever was one ⦾ She's an alien princess, and we're all just prisoners of her beauty ⦾ She's a super-model ⋯ a super-model who looks like a guy ⦾ She's a member of the Swiss parliament ⦾ She's from Russia, she's from Switzerland, she's from the United States of America

She's the one who rushes to the front of the line at your aunt's funeral, who stands in a puddle on the beach as she watches you play in the waves ⦾ She's a plastic doll, one of hundreds in a trunk ⦾ She eats ice cream for breakfast and reads Catskill Review for lunch ⦾ She's in the air conditioner, under the bed, in the closet. She's in the television, in the toilet, in the kitchen. She's in the oven and on fire, in the refrigerator, on the stove and in the bathtub

First dates should always be in daylight but shaded, since the sun is too much at that stage of the game ⦾ But if it has to be at night … well, without the moon we’d be blind, so let it hang there but mute, in the background

A northern star can serve as a guide, but it has to work more as a metaphor for adventure and discovery ⋯ as a practical matter, we all make our own way

There are additional considerations ⦾ Are you taking notes? Without the earth, we’d all float off into space — or fall into it? — so let it stay, but not too close ⦾ And in case you think space is empty, a vacuum, a nothingness to be filled with your obvious metaphors ⋯ well, it’s not, you know ⋯ it’s filthy with stars

So what I was getting to is that the first kiss — sunburned or moonlit or star-crossed or whatever — that first one jacks you straight to the cosmos

The right kiss can pull in half the known universe

Long drives to see his mother for Christmas ⋯ father chain smoking Camels (unfiltered) with all the windows rolled up and the vents closed against the cold ⦾ I'd stare out the window at farm houses while my parents, up front, listened to a sequence of local AM stations ⦾ The radio crackled with static every forty-odd miles ⦾ You're a ghost in the machine he said to me once ⦾ And Yeah, he'd say, Hell is like this. White on black.

I saw those lines as a black-and-white movie running in reverse ⋯ the blur of trees and cows and houses like a fast-forwarded film ⦾ In the dark the dashboard lights became campfires in the distance ⦾ I'd stare at her back as she smoked Chesterfields through a slim ivory holder, the tip glowing like a hovering meteor

We'd pull into the driveway and sit for a moment before he turned off the engine, taking stock of the hedge, the house, the lawn ⦾ I'd stumble out stoned from a nicotine fog while mother applied lipstick and a smile ⦾ You're a mess, she'd say, adjusting her coat ⦾ You look like you slept in a sewer.

Grandmother would ask how I was doing in school, and I'd lie ⦾ She'd ask what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I'd lie ⦾ She'd tell me that it wasn't too late to be anything I wanted to be, and I'd lie ⦾ The trees outside were always bare, the sky was cloudy, it was always too cold ⦾ You will be known when your father's gone she once declared while reclining in an embroidered oriental robe

We'd stop for fries on the way home and I would watch mother pull out the lipstick and apply it again ⦾ I always wondered what she was trying to hide when I saw her do that ⦾ Some years later, I got my answer ⦾ Guess we all need something to hide behind

It was supposed to be a bang, was downgraded to a whimper, but turned out to be closer to an asthma attack ⦾ No entertainment value to speak of ⋯ just color-coded charts and actuarial tables ⦾ We never even got jetpacks. Just apps atop stacks that can't scale

The apps were for buying add-ins and subscriptions ⋯ you'd only bought the handle of the razor ⦾ Instead of time travel we wound up with time-shares, followed by robocalls and spam on how to cancel those contracts ⦾ The Twitter-sphere is not a utopia of civic engagement ⋯ it's an anthill on a plate ⦾ The cloud is not a metaphor for our interconnectedness ⋯ it's just a place where you can't find your files ⦾ The Internet isn't a panopticon ⋯ it's just a place where you can't take a dump with any privacy ⦾ There are no signs of intelligence in the universe ⋯ only signs of intelligence in marketing departments ⦾ We were supposed to be able to fly and instead we got drones

So here we are, arms akimbo atop a dead volcano, flashing our teeth at each other in hideous selfies ⦾ We’re in the real-time, reality-show version of hell ⦾ We’re in the business of lies and we call it news ⦾ We’re in the business of likes and we call it engagement ⦾ We giggle into our screens and call it entertainment

Big box store and strip mall were never metaphors ⦾ We said there was a problem with the water, and there was ⋯ it was a problem with the water, just not in the way we thought ⦾ The stench of scorched metal and rubber hoses, like a pig’s ear in a toaster oven ⦾ An army of the bored and disaffected, who no longer have any hope of dying young ⦾ A procession of predictable thrillers, sterile romcoms, talent contests, cartoons ⦾ Reality shows starring instantly infamous rubes ⦾ The sickly-sweet stench of rotting strawberries raised by exploited migrants ⦾ Truckloads of toxic fertilizer dumped on every poor person in America ⦾ Phallic launchers for joyrides that barely reach space ⦾ A confederacy of dunces ⦾ Pandemics

Never mind ⋯ how about we all just get a bunch of cheeseburgers, maybe watch the game? ⦾ The end of the earth is an old story, but the end of our world is new news ⦾ We're just not interesting anymore

I've got this most American of desire ⋯ the one that sends me to the store for a new shirt (sage green) or a toaster oven, or a new leather jacket, without putting much thought into it ⦾ I'm a sucker for sales, and I'm a collector ⦾ Desire makes me dangerous ⦾ I want to be liked and admired ⦾ I want to be guarded but understood ⋯ invisible yet invincible

Which is why I choose to look like a leopard ⦾ I'm not the only one. Most of us do ⦾ The Americans who fought in Vietnam, we all did ⦾ Wearing the uniforms of our enemies and the skins of our prey, we came home to become doctors and lawyers and teachers ⦾ We married and had children and built homes on the bones of the dead and on the backs of the poor, just like we always wanted to ⦾ And we're still hungry for more than what we've got ⦾ Our nation's deadliest predator, our dollar bill, loves shiny things ⦾ Our dollar bill thinks that in the right hands it might find God, who has an eye for style and value

I drive back to our place, I say “I will never leave you again.” I’ll drink what you drink, I’ll smoke what you smoke, and I’ll see your friends if you see mine ⦾ I’ll be sleeping with the enemy ⋯ solitary confinement in a small bed

You're thinking ’bout moving your stuff out of my room ⋯ I’m thinking ’bout leaving your stuff in it, then I’m thinking ’bout leaving my stuff in it, too ⦾ You won’t have to admit defeat, I’ll do it for you ⦾ I'll say I want no part of this. And I don’t ⦾ A motorcycle engine idling in the street below ⦾ I just want to run up to it and rip off the gas cap ⦾ What's that smell? you'd ask, then Offer him a beer.

But I don’t want another beer, I just want to smell the gas ⦾ I can smell it for hours sometimes, that smell of speed

The little mice sang on the frozen beach, beyond the reach of the old woman’s feet, and the moon shone like a golden medallion on the bare breast of the sleeping sea ⦾ Without a single word, but with a smile that seemed to say Goodnight, sweet dreams.

And then the little mice scampered away into the moonlight, and the old woman folded her hands, and slept until morning ⦾ And in the morning, she woke up and said I’m going to paint everything red today.

And so she did ⦾ She painted everything red — the beach, the sand, the rock ⋯ the shells and starfish and pieces of broken glass ⋯ the scattered pieces of driftwood and bits of floating kelp ⋯ the little wooden signs and the tiny flags that warned of danger ⋯ the seagulls and sandpipers and cormorants ⋯ the waves and the wind ⋯ the sun and the moon ⋯ and even her old brown dress and gray woolen shawl

For it was all hers, and she could do whatever she wanted ⦾ And what she wanted was to paint everything red ⦾ When she was finished she took off her dress and shawl, exposing her withered body to the sun and air ⋯ and then she stepped into the water and waded out to sea ⦾ And as she walked out into deeper water, she began to sink ⦾ As her hands floated up from her side, they still held a brush of red paint ⦾ And as her head drifted down toward the bottom of the sea, she hadn't closed her eyes ⦾ She had not yet closed her eyes

Solar eclipse over Columbia, among magnolia and monuments ⦾ Birds shriek and seek nests in two o'clock dusk ⦾ A cooling of the air as the cars slow and stop ⦾ Then god's raging black face is revealed at last, impotent and wild-haired, straining to strike ⦾ Philosophers and children cower in darkened rooms ⦾ The shadows of leaves and the shadows of clouds are largely the same ⦾ The sky has been utterly blotted

A fly lands on my hand and I'm surprised at the heat of its body ⦾ The dark back of a cardinal passes before my face and I'm surprised at the color of its wings ⋯ the singed rusty red of splintered wood in a hearth, or of a hornet's nest in an oak tree ⦾ It is beauty ⦾ I understand nothing but feel more than enough ⋯ a raw empty pain beneath my ribs ⋯ a strange pressure at the base of my skull

The moon is an anagram ⋯ it's a shape you remember from somewhere else, an animal you've seen in a dream ⦾ The blackness is still advancing ⦾ Now it's three and pitch dark ⋯ fully night again ⦾ The birds have gone quiet ⋯ the cars have all stopped ⦾ We're back exactly where we started, surrounded by stasis, cement, and secession