​But i can make a new one. let me
Give you an example: two nights ago
i sucked beauty

Into my belly
Then heaved it out, churned gently
And sealed away wistful immortality,
Hexagonal

[Content warning: eating disorders, grief, and school shootings]

Being a teenager isn’t hard they say, but they haven’t considered how hard it is to be a teenage GIRL. Wake up, first thing on the to do list is to scroll through her socials and see how much she is worth based on the bikini photo she posted last night with her abusive boyfriend. While she is scrolling she sees the bleach blonde models with slim figures and perfect skin. Why don’t I look like that? She whispers to herself with a tear rolling down her cheek. Next step of her routine is to head to the bathroom. Step on the scale, look at herself in the mirror, and scrub her skin until it is as clear as the photoshopped model she saw earlier. She’s up half a pound because she couldn’t stand the thirst any longer. As she steps off the scale she sighs, picking at her skin as she observes every part of herself in the mirror. 

​time sinks
like everything else
in the gravity well
of my childhood bedroom.
i’m bound to the carpet
by a force
stifling
suffocating
extinguishing.

​I think they are conspicuous
When they tell me the quiet will bring calm
I think they are conspicuous
When they watch the rain streak down my
Window panes

blessed? our hands were once intertwined over valleys
as we tongued the wisps that drizzle from the moon, fingers
twitching as our legs moved us across galaxies, running
until our stoned calves burnt like a feather in a volcano, euphoric
-drunk from the isolation we hammered into the world when the sky
was eclipsed. but we learned: night turns moon into sun, and
​the dazed skies oxidize into poison they force us 

you are something forged, something remade. your name is a moth
with eyes for wings, more limb than insect. you can try to carve the
letters out of the lipstick stains on the cracked bathroom mirror, but
you’ll find only yourself, dissected. eyes. lips. tongue. I’ll tell you now:
you are a combination of scavenged parts, of your past selves littering​

The 2018 World Happiness Report named Costa Rica the happiest country in Latin America - not all that surprising when Costa Rica has for years topped global happiness rankings, alongside the usual Scandinavian suspects of Norway, Sweden and Denmark. The same year, though, the UN Development Program named Costa Rica one of only three Latin American countries that has seen a rise in economic inequality since 2000. In 2018, the income of the richest 20 percent of Costa Rica's population was 19 times higher than that of the poorest 20 percent. Currently, around 38 percent of Costa Rica's total income goes to the top 10 percent of the population, leaving around 20 percent of the population in utter poverty. 

[Content warning: gun violence]

it's a dying texan midnight        i squint & 
my grandmother glows 

asleep in the corner        my mother becomes
herself        a little less lawyer 

woman        man        ​financial 
child        bearer for seven hours. 

Lee
A cemetery. There are three rows of tombstones. Bouquets of flowers are sparsely seated by a  tombstone or two. At the largest tombstone, three siblings, Margot, Chase, and Addie stand in  front of it; Margot places flowers on the grave while Chase is holding a picnic basket. Addie  opens the lid and takes out a banana.  

MARGOT
Let’s greet them properly, shall we? 
(Altogether they bow. Margot and Chase go for a second one, and Addie follows a bit  slower.) 

MARGOT
Hey Mom. Hey Dad. It’s us again. Last time we were here…was what? Must’ve been the same  day last year. Time really flies, doesn't it?  
(Chase scoffs, swinging the picnic basket.) 
What Chase, did you have anything to add?