writing: screenplay #3, “muse”

The window is gothic, church-shaped, above her. She is bending over a wooden desk, working furiously; outside, it is autumn and the light is brilliant and orange. Her hair tucked hurriedly behind her ears, curling out. He comes and stands above her, looking down; there is something unusually serious about him; he is a person…

writing: hunger and boys and poetry

There was a storm coming and she had run six miles and she was not hungry. She sprawled on the couch and ached pleasurably, but her stomach was ringing hollow. I am going to vomit, most likely. Why the fuck am I not hungry? Why the fuck? It was six miles. The last time her…

writing: literary suicide note

There was no newness to anything anymore. She sat in the house and waited for people to be finished; she sat on the couches and watched the clouds pass over the fields outside the windows; the windows were perpetually dirty, smudged sometimes when the cats shoved their homesick faces against the glass and mostly smudged…

writing: the cousin

The lights dimmed in the room and she left quickly. She did not want to see his face when he came in. It had been six months and she did not want to look at him. The picture was in her head, aggressive in clarity. She did not have to look. She left and stood…

writing: the holiday girl

not all of the following makes sense, really, but I'm publishing it anyway. call it "writing practice" and read at your own risk. "The meaning of literature" is something I think about often, especially after fucking, when my boyfriend has rolled away to stare at a book and I stare at the wall. I know…

writing: in these years, we just give up

When I woke up my teeth were sticky with plaque; this is the fourth or maybe the sixth time this week I have woken up and remembered that last night, I did not brush my teeth. Last night, I did not do anything, except lie on the floor and eat the chocolate taffy from Wisconsin…

writing: the things that happened today

I stood in the shower a long time and imagined getting out, taking my towel from the hook and wrapping it around my body, and then unclipping my hair and shaking it loose and bunching the curls between my fingers, and walking back to my dorm room. My room is clean. Nothing else, lately, has…

writing: screenplay, #2

[the girl's name is Mildred; she is tall, modern, and almost nervous. she is orange flowers against a blue sky, or some other equally silly and half-finished aesthetic. she is wearing overalls (stylish ones), over a thick sweater.] [her half-sister is unremarkable; she is called Alice. her greatest tragedy in life has been the death…

writing: screenplay, #1

[a boy and a girl, both mid-teens. each rather drab-looking; not Hollywood ordinary, just ordinary. sitting with their legs between the iron slats of a balcony. crows and city noise in the background. a cornflower blue sky, some clouds] the girl: I can't even talk to him, not anymore. It's driving me crazy. the boy:…

writing: untitled november 2018

him: so. her: hi. him: do you want to marry me? her: her: i barely know you. him: so? her: when you come over and say hi to me when i'm working part of me wants to ask you to go buy me a coffee because i'm always tired and i'm dying for a coffee.…