Leopard print
Grease
My small cat daughter, Simone
Leather
Sugar
My large cat son, Lugosi
The Tom of Finland men who live in my
sinew and swivel my neck to look at
Justin Theroux types on the street
The green dress Keira Knightley wore
in Atonement that I would have worn in
Jovani knockoff form to prom
The night I skipped prom to watch the new Star Trek movie and eat Garden
State Plaza food court cheesesteaks
with Nick Messina
Skull rings
Carrie Fisher
Lactose intolerance
Velvet
Eyeliner
Honeyed goat chevre
The photo of my grandmother grabbing
Sylvester Stallone’s ass when he filmed
the movie Lock Up at our family auto
body shop
The fact that I didn’t have an imaginary friend as a kid but an imaginary
boyfriend
The fact that his name was Jonathan and I still have no idea where that came
from I didn’t even have a crush on
Jonathan Taylor Thomas
Geminis
Aquarians
The Romanov execution
Silver
Oxblood
Anna Karenina buying that train ticket
the tension of routinely calling poly
people “fedora fucker street magicians
named Tyberon and their ren faire ass
girlfriends” but having participated in
polyamory myself, at least twice
Fucking Paul
Not fucking Paul
…but definitely fucking Eric
*****
******
of Tulsa
Whether stuffed animals have
abandonment complexes and the ache
I feel at those I haven’t rescued from
curbs
a stream of Emotional Support Snapple
Zero Sugar Razz, steady
a stream of emotional affairs, unsteady
Rocky
Network
Fran Fine
The smell of gasoline
The smell of chlorine
Fran Drescher (they are different)
The riveting debate as to whether Sally
Bowles is secretly American and The
New World stages production of The Woodsman
My mother making me get my second
holes pierced at 14 because the cool
(meaning: thin, not respected) girls all
had them, and how they grow pregnant
with pus twice an infected year
Feeling morally superior for not wearing
open-toed shoes
The vulgarity of a Lindt truffle
bursting in your mouth
Singing “Lua” into the casket of my high
school best friend
Leslye Headland’s Sleeping with Other
People
Ascending the stairs with my dress in
my hand like an Austenian heroine
The Vincent Van Gogh episode of Doctor Who, because I’m not a fucking
sociopath
Carrie Coon, and how I wish I had a
mother
The moon (sorry)
Two-thirty a.m.
The drummer I want to put me through
the drywall
Seashells, and soap rendered in their
honor
Mosquitos and their cis male
counterparts
Laura Palmer and I sharing a birthday
If my inner child will ever come out of
there
The animatronic Christmas display on
the second floor of the Fountains of
Wayne store the band is named after
The priest from Fleabag
Catholicism
Judaism
And the Westchester father who fucked
me into God’s palm
Whether that palm was loving or closed
Death Cab for Cutie’s “Cath…”
A nice man I know who can hold 60
Dixon Ticonderoga pencils in his fist
Carly Rae Jepsen
The terminal overuse of the phrase
“iconic”
Dylan Baker playing that child molestor
Signs that say “no dumping”
The written oeuvre of Louise Rennison,
may her memory be a blessing
Christmas snow and the fact that my
dad is a retired fire chief who to this day
forbids me from owning candles but
puts 75 pounds of radioactive lava lamp ass
ornaments on the Christmas tree every year
That in my last fit of suicidal wishin’ and
hopin’ and thinkin’ and prayin’, I
couldn’t shake that my dad would not,
in fact, be better off without me here,
and that is the first time I have ever
added anyone to that side of the list
Tom
John Mahoney in Moonstruck
John Mahoney in anything
Diaphanous 1950’s bathrooms, in pink
The way Bruce Springsteen sings “move” at the end of the bridge in “Spirit
in the Night
”The Saddle Brook Diner
Watching my friends brown out in Tony
Clark’s mom’s hot tub
VH1’s I Love the 80’s in lieu of middle
school friends
My allergies
Unrequited love
Checkerboard Vans
Gene Kelly’s ass
Rainbow sprinkles
An exile from Pittsburgh
Cardinals, whether I like it or not
…
Sally Rooney
(obviously)
Comments