We don’t talk about the bouquets much. Oswald wore them in his hair when we were kids. When we found the bodies, he had a full head of roses and daisies, all expertly arranged by his mother. She fussed over him, really. …

A while back, almost seven or eight years ago now, I reset. This wasn’t the first time it happened. I can say that I’ve reset maybe three or four times in my life, and it always happens the same way. I understand that it’s happening, and as I’ve gotten older…

Arnold survived, but he can’t escape the thought of flames. (Edited by Lyric Taylor) My therapist always tells me that I can’t equate everything to fire. “Everything is not about burning alive, Arnold. Sometimes a dress is just a dress.” That’s fine. That’s valid. I don’t tell her that yes…

It’s what I think about all the time. All day. Being maimed. Being crushed. Being erased. My father died when I was young, too young to really understand anything but the finality of it. He was here, and then he wasn’t. He was the strongest man on the planet, and…

Another woman dies, alone and unheard. We don’t have to know her life. It’s our duty to know her death. Woman, Circa 1969: Everything was bathed in something. With her shoulders back, she presented herself to worlds and men and, sometimes, women. …

The last day of your life. The last hour. The last minute. A final second that you exhale, cigarette smoke trailing glamorously up to the sky, your heart beating like always, thick and slow, as you enjoy an ignorance you’ll never feel again. The promise of life is so often…

You give them everything, you know? There are parts of me that are still stuck somewhere inside him, neglected, unwashed, unnoticed. I could’ve been a spike through his chest and he would’ve just nodded his head in annoyance. I talk too much, you know? …

She put her cigarettes out on my arms a lot. I’d see the cherries moving slowly in the dark, her bright, big eyes watching me, and she’d connect with my skin. It sizzled, as expected, and I never reacted, as expected. The skin underneath would warp and curl into itself…

I think of No Country for Old Men and imagine my depression as a captive bolt pistol. It’s pointed at my head, consistently, constantly, and I wonder when it will go off. I wonder when the person, the concept, the problem, the worry holding it will finish me off. …