love letter to an anonymous future lover written on october 23, 2001 in iowa city

Darling,

Do you think--no. You must not think you are the only person who feels lonely. Like an overlooked genius far from her temperate climate. No. We are not the only people who find it difficult moving around in our skin, trying to make our own skin adapt to this stupid new world. Can't do that though. Here, our skin is the only thing we have--the only thing we share a story with. We can't recreate it. That would be suicide. No, we don't have the only aching arms or the only cold pillows or the only inside jokes between ourselves and ourselves. We aren't the only ones who daydream.

Love,

J.F.

she feeds me tea and oranges

running scared by nick cave and the bad seeds

self sabotage | egatobas fles

the lion's roar by first aid kit

cut off my legs, papantla

o leaozinho by beirut

grace

lord keep me day by day by the caravans

gospel medley: city of gold, god's beautiful city

counting bedbugs

in the summertime by roger miller

starfish brains

look look away over

boom shaka laka

in the raw wind

after laughter comes tears by wendy rene

be mine

spilled lentils

1. al canario le dio un soponcio
2. vinieron hasta mi tierra en busca de esa fuente, y les dio puro hierro
3. a wingless bird decked in tiny green feathers
4. a chalk map on asphalt
5. una sentencia

all untangled

manifiesto

equidistant

la biblioteca prófuga de R. Arenas, 1973

La Ilíada de Homero
Del Orinoco a Amazonas
La montaña mágica
El castillo

what you sewed underneath the flag

1. if you had ten wishes, you would keep just one
2. and, after the intoxication, vomit watermelon pulp
3. bagazo
4. into tiny cups
5. as if it were medicine
6. that symbol you sewed underneath the flag
7. intimate, ínfima, infamous
8. arrows that absorb electric light
9. anticipate emergencies
10. along the endless corridor

striptease

i'll trade you one piece of clothing for a sentence
any string of words you have for me

the fish, the gourd, the seething sea

The fish
1. A big fish or whale (of unspecified species) did indeed swallow Jonah.
2. A special creation (not any fish we know of) of God accomplished the act.
3. There was no fish: the story is an allegory, the fish is a literary device in the story, the story is a vision or a dream. etc.
4. The originators of the story did indeed intend for the story to be taken literally, and it was subsequently believed to be literally true by the pre-scientific culture in which the story originated and flourished.

The gourd
1. But We cast him forth on the naked shore in a state of sickness,/And We caused to grow, over him, a spreading plant of the gourd kind
2. Gilgamesh plucks his plant from the floor of the sea which he reached by tying stones to his feet. Once he makes it back to the shore, the rejuvenating plant is eaten by a serpent.
3. Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow, which came up in a night, and perished in a night...

The seething sea
1. The seething sea ceaseth, thus the seething sea sufficeth us.
2. The seething seas ceaseth, and twiceth the seething seas sufficeth us.

non sequential sensory deprivation (defenestration now)

Ocularists
In short, they paint artificial eyes. It sounds easier than it is, since as with real eyes, no two are exactly the same.

Gold reclaimers
They scour old teeth for fillings, melting the gold from them with broken gold jewelry into tiny gold pellets, which are then resold to jewelers.

Safecrackers
When combinations are lost or forgotten, safecrackers use their ears and fingers to open the safe.

dedicated to chichis glam, whose absence is like a solar eclipse

the pain of loving you by dolly parton

anticucho para treinta

autochthonous mini fiction

This is one of the busiest days of the year for the postal service, so there was quite a line at the post office. As I was standing in the line, a man poked his head through the door, looked around, said, "I did this enough in Vietnam; I ain't gon' do it here," and walked out. I wasn't sure what he meant.

A. Forsythe, 20.Dec.10