My friend Tal and I used to crash piano stores for fun. Here in Los Angeles, millionaires cruise around in cutoff jean shorts and Priuses. It was never difficult to convince salespeople that a couple schlubs like us needed a showpiece baby grand for the solarium in our imaginary cliffside haunt in Malibu. Once the ruse was set, we’d head straight for the Bösendorfers and Blüthners, feigning indifference to their half-million-dollar price tags, ogling their European curves, and using our fingertips to coax fluidity out of their nascent, delicate actions.
My Mother Tries to Comfort Me Over the Phone; Atonement for Longing; If You Kill Me, Make It Vintage
I want to be that person
the one who gracefully gets out of a pool
and their wet hair looks like an Herbal Essences ad
or a beach photo shoot
Not Much to Look At
My parents were always looking for adventures for us. Growing up in Boron, a small Mojave desert town, about an hour from the nearest incorporated city could easily lead to boredom. There were no movie theatres, no malls, not even a chain grocery store to entertain us. The population of about two thousand only accounted for one small food mart and three family-owned restaurants. So, when John suggested taking us up Saddleback Mountain my mother and father jumped at the opportunity of something new.
Disembodied
A signature is like a floating head above the water What you see from the shore is enough to call help.
Try the Clouds; One Star; Telling the Myth; A Tenth of My Normal Size, I Fly on a Bird; I Believe in the TV Family
Don’t bring me near the cat
because you think you can fly away.
I’m nothing but a doll to you,
but I have human skin and eyes,
What Narcissism Meant to Me: My Entry into the Poetry World
I didn’t really want to write anything very long, and I didn’t feel I was cut out for a novel. Instead, I started going to poetry slams, reading poems that I wrote out of humor and for fun.