Jul 31, 2020
Living with the Dead in Placentia, CA
Oftentimes, the dead leave town. Olga thinks the dead leave because they find there is no place for them.
Oftentimes, the dead leave town. Olga thinks the dead leave because they find there is no place for them.
When a girl Miss-Mary-Macks with you, it’s like you share a birthday for a full breathless sixty seconds.
The plan was to seal themselves inside for as long as they needed to—until the world stopped burning, until it was safe.
One day, Brian would dissolve into the atmosphere and not come back. One day, this room, our home, our love, would no longer be able to contain him.
Houses were flooded, roofs were carried away in the wind...And a month before that, the condoms in my father’s wardrobe mysteriously disappeared.
“Hello, [a mispronounced version of your name], pleased to meet you.”
They like flirting with local women. When they’re satisfied with the season, they catch a plane and go back to gringolandia.
The bubbly letters were both a direction and a justification for the lines of people who shelled out $37.50 for a forty-five-minute “experience” at “the sweetest place on earth.”
Why can’t we imagine, just for the sake of argument, that a joyful spirit leaves some of themselves behind—an echo of joy in a place they once loved?
What is dramatic about wanting to protect ten kids from the bullshit of the world? Just ten. That’s all I want.
Somewhere far away, someone made a call, someone in power said yes to violence, and our friends would never get to see our friends say yes to love.
The girl, a matchmaker, asked to see Shlomo’s hand. Reaching from her coat pocket, she pressed a tarot card-sized photo into his palm.
He always smelled like fabric softener exhaust from the laundromat down our block: like blue bottles of Downy and Saturday nights, when Mami would blow dry my hair straight with dollops of Dippity-Doo.
What does a melon dream about as it bathes in tendrils of rainwater, wishing to be invisible?
It was here that Dad told me the story. I didn’t know where the story had come from, or how long he’d carried it inside him.
She, too, often felt she would die if she went without physical contact. She worried sometimes that this meant she was becoming one of them.
April says the people at church don’t talk to us because they’re motherfuckers.
She updates the simple bio on her dating profile: “looking for nothing serious. I am really into knives. Really, really into knives, ask me about it.”
Maybe it wasn’t that Angie wanted to break things off with Kate; she just didn’t know enough to decide if she wanted to keep going.
