---

can crying
ruin a facial
figment of a 
dream 
rolled over 
to space 
a stopgap 
across the 
east river 
siren 
of the 
broken water 

hand to my heart 
finger off a knife 
black forest chocolate 
cake
purple eyeliner
shadow 
of the last year 
hanging over 
our table
hanging out and the piano
death rattle 
night always over
before it started 
wine with the dessert
pairing at colbo
knee high socks
in the sleet 
a place that only she knows
locked inside
with a light on 
didn’t wash my hair 
in the old office 
vitamin water
and vodka tonic
ring of smoke
that wraps around us 

my valentine 
harbor of my 
fixture 
exhaust down delancey 
what’s meant to be
dissolves in 
a single slice 

a clock run backwards
red roses 
on the dashboard
song streaming on 
and on 

---

UNTITLED
dug both names 
out of the oak 
if you wanted me 
i could 
upend the frame 
turn the dial 
back 
to summer 
my leopard mini 
in the green room 

my sister the ocean
stood watch 
staring 
saying don’t 

go there 

brooch around my neck 
glows 
with the flush 
of desert 

amphetamine 
dust and the years 
stood in circles 
a match 
on division 
angling upwards 
towards the cherry 
red blinking 

we are all capable 
of violence 
to split the two 
wide open 

hall of plaster 
stone is an oyster 
down the well 
in mud splattered 
leather 
possession in 
infrared 
flip side 
of the same coin 

build a hearth 
blue down the motorway 
dream you never get 
where you’re going 

---

UNTITLED
red apple 
split from the heart 
oil from my insides 
crushed pill 
from the rave 
stuck in my throat 
running for the bus 
thrill 
bottled up 
in patent 

how you make me 
feel when we walk 
in unison 
like a gash of something 
sweet exploded 
on the street 
for anyone to take 
stem of pressed flower 
and bled through 
horizon 
orchid of our own 
becoming

When did I become an object in a mirror, rather than a person in other people’s lives? How will I know whether I can be both?

happiness is a butterfly 
cut from the body 
hand to palm to read 
between permanent roads 
too sweet 
to encounter
the last scoop
jacket wrapped in gossamer 
wings clipped 
and cradled 
as a new way 
to speak 
without
trying  

---

YEAR OF FORGETTING
nick león beach noir 
patent leather pumps 
from the real real 
going to dinner like some 
unfulfilled wish 
being a girl 
holding everything 
on the inside 
mother of pearl 
everyone’s mother 

diving 
diving 
diving 
asphalt 
sunglasses in january 
dressing
aspirationally 
silk flower around my neck 
not drinking except 
to make new friends 

over the water 
eyelash of the city 
unspoken 
unspoken 
unspoken 
cinematic sculpture 
of the turnstile 
leap of faith 
swan dive 
to the bottom feeders

just for loving you i pay the price

---

AURA POINTS
I
gaping holes
in my old priscavera 
wider and longer 
as time balloons
glazed and mechanical 
amanda says his whole instagram
is lamps 
and that means 
he gets around 

II
no remorse 
for the guy next to me 
lighting his cigarette 
on a candle
he doesn’t know 
about vanderpump rules 
how kristen doute 
did it first

III
to disappear 
means to be missed 
in detail
an elegy to
one of the best breakfasts 
i’ve ever had 
at piaule 
red hair bleached out by the sauna 
rust following me 
everywhere 
a pyre for all the restaurants 
on the same corner of franklin 
lucky to make it to one year

IV
blood letting 
as spring comes 
screaming at the television 
arms circle around 
the cellophane couch 
one last
snow angel 
in the dark

 

---

FLIP SIDE
fifty degrees at the ocean 
eve leaving her vape in my bag 
the joy of friendship 
thin ice 
bridge up 
two ships
uncrossing 
in my dream where we sat out
on the back porch alone
dirt road yellow and the places
that lead to nowhere 
something promised by the air 
that hangs heavy and 
consuming 

crying at the backyard bbq 
drew a star tangled in the twine 
of twin eclipses 
the comfort of people leaving 
the city 
the universe taking away the pain 
of serendipity 
end of the year black magic
drew an arrow pierced and through 
falling water 
broken stoplight 

concave through the mud 
one last drag  
my name in your country 
of silence 

 

---

UNTITLED
downtown past the mcdonalds
on canal
changing clothes in the bathroom
when i first moved to new york

rain drop 
sterling silver earrings down to my 
neck 

if a song could summon something 
grapes under the table 
another yoga sculpt class 
slicked back city

being 24 again 
sometimes i feel that

drugs in the venue kitchen 
in my leather dress 
meeting your girlfriend 

the room was so loud and i 
saw him angled over 
his shoulder 

swollen eyelids 
through the darkness 
the dreamworld 
i exist in 

lines on my 
face 
salt streams over
my body 
persimmon in handfuls 
begotten
fortune 
magnetic scripture 
scraped down the wall
we follow


 

---

UNDER THE BRIDGE
watching the clock
wounded brick brownstones stare
like they’re disappointed
everytime you say i want
to stop
this
sitting in your lap with the tv on
no music forever
talking at the wall where i keep saying
the people who lived here before us
knew the only way out was through exacting
some kind of revenge
in your back garden this time of year
outside is always yellow
and the plants hug our ankles
dream of hot metal on cheekbone
the cheap thrills that land you close to
religion
new york over everything
punch me in the face
tell me over and over

---

CLAPHAM JUNCTION
you said
i just felt like doing that

the sun is the center of the universe
the light of the night bus

kissing to say there’s no chance of a future
holding hands like the drugs and

the weight of knowing
being alone is a choice

a suburban fantasy
crushing me underneath

---

WATERFRONT
black mascara in the heat for no one
the summer over before it began
imagine my wrists as machines that think before me
touching someone else
in an expensive dress on myrtle broadway
by the ocean with a cigarette
i asked you not to love me and you said
promises don’t exist,
real life begins at midnight
the only way to measure success is to keep on going
brightness like sugar
ten miles over the limit
shut the door and keep it closed

---

UNTITLED
you listen to soulless drake music on the weekends
say i want kids before the planet collapses
any day now
hand beneath my slip dress
slam the door on nostrand avenue
say i’m tired of commitment
tired of caring whose getting added
to the right streaming service playlists
when nobody is working and the horizon is just
one bloodshot line in the ninety degree weather
where you can pretend there’s a place and a time
to be together / unpeeling skin like an orange
cut into pieces

---

GREENPOINT IN SPRING
i don’t drink alone but i go to the beach when it’s overcast. late may feels like last october, nine lives back and forth when the water didn’t feel so physical. in the fog you see straight into nothing, there are no shows, no new girlfriends and no place to go, but i make mistakes anyway. this is a time to get creative. i read a poem about being split down the middle, and friday night text an old spring fling “hope you’re well” then text someone else “it’s easy to reach out when you don’t care at all”.


this copenhagen dj pens an essay on rave culture: at a rave, he says, time is not important. like the intense penetrating kick of techno music, they write, the photos are penetrated by lights of hope, shining out from a near past into our present moment. in our dystopian reality these lights become ghost-like, hauntingly reminding us of what we once had, but also, more importantly, what we could have again. call it what you want: blue euphoria, heartbreak techno. something is always about to happen and then it’s over. when i exit the station the water is like the fake aquamarine painted at the bottom of a pool.sometimes i think i could walk straight into the  ocean and turn to crystal like all the condos where i don’t know anyone.


after we fucked you said, i’m not a bad guy, i was just trying to be cool. i haven’t been to bed. i need a cigarette and a red bull vodka, i text someone alone at the show. what do you do for fun? i ask my new coworker and she demurs, i’d prefer not to say.


sometimes my dreams literally end with me screaming, turn the vocals up in the mix, but all i really want is two ceramic mugs side by side in the morning, wet hair from a hot shower, the sun to rise and to be certain. once i met a boy at a party on ketamine and we read aphex twin interviews on his rooftop over eggs, he posts photos of his cat on instagram and the second time we hung out, he said i guess i’ll never see you again, and it was true.

---

BAYARD & BOWERY
everywhere in soho
people are worth 25 million dollars
but everyone is just drinking
the same ten dollar whiskey cokes
at tables while the snow leaves
stretch marks across the sidewalks
by cafe select
love in the time of outdoor dining
means you can’t even make out
on the train anymore
because somebody will die
& the first thing
people still ask is what you do
for a living

there is nobody but us
outside the permanently closed
versace flagship store
shoulderblades of trees gleam
under the winter solstice sunset
bright red & pink
their exposed bones hollowed out
like the exoskeletons of bikes in chinatown
forever

you put your hand inside my shirt
the water turns to glass
spidery cracks that splinter
in a thousand different directions

 

---

FASHION WEEK

inside our tenth story walkup 
we will never have breakfast only good skin 
and lateral moves in our careers 

i wanted to say it’s all impossible 
to escape the news like the type of journalism 
that says no, he texted first 
counting time like inches of roots in my hair 
that you unbraid slowly 
pulling apart at the ends while billboards 
for designer denim campaigns are watching 
hungry for the last reminder of human connection 
the x at the end of a sentence 
red lipstick streaked across 
the subway platform as we dangle our legs 
before the last train comes 

---

SULLIVAN & GRAND

everything is so romantic
for one second
november in fake designer sunglasses
on canal street good sex is like
buying an i love new york t-shirt
on a sunday morning in downtown soho
the raves were always disappointing
even when they weren’t illegal
now everyone just knows
the meaning of fun
by the west side river
christmas lights climb
all over each other to get to the top
our house is on fire
i dreamed you called me first

---

NORTH LONDON BACKWARDS

i do my laundry
three quarters of the way
through
enough is enough
i have a controversial opinion
that within five seconds
we all know
what’s going on tonight

again, i will not change my life
if no one is looking
i will not age
i will actually go backwards
drinking jager with eighteen year olds
outside a bar off dalston junction
putting on a brave face
taking off my makeup
inside a house where nothing belonged
to me

you sweetly said
you are only beautiful
when you are never around
time swallowed whole
beyond repair
the music was the only thing
holding us together
biting my lip
on the other side of a highway
the lights went out at all once
blue eyes &
silence

---

THE M TRAIN
phone is filled with fuckups. $1600 in cash. down central with a slice. sun dry heaving in the corner. cab driver laughs. person who got slashed with a box cutter at art basel, did u hear. i thought that story was for me. night looks like this with no context. twilight on allen. you took pictures of machines & called them baby. i’m not sure what is worse.

---

2025
a year of walking around the big city. suddenly it’s below freezing everyday but the sun won’t go away and the snow doesn’t come. the past few months have been filled with this extreme hypertension of waiting, then nothing, then almost. my horoscope says it’s the supermoon in Gemini and i won’t have to wait much longer. go into the room and sing in advance, it says. this time of year feels plastic, stuck in between dimensions of the stillness of air and the fact that something is happening every night of the week. going out to a late show on a monday. listening to the raisa k album between bedford and first ave. on the little man-made island in chelsea people are taking photos of new jersey like it’s a premonition of heaven. the heaviness extends everywhere. my friend says ‘I think sometimes u romanticize the world u live in so much it clouds u from seeing other things.’ a lot of us are still doing the same thing as a decade ago. my coworker is complaining about how songs from the year before are in everyone’s year end lists. time is just a construct and yet a form of belonging. when you’re so much in a world that there is nothing else without it. not knowing is the new knowing. dry shampooing my hair at funny bar. haunted by the glamazon skyscrapers of fidi where it’s like, sometimes the fantasy is the whole point. all polyester fit in the underworld. i reach my hand to touch the surface and it reverberates across the country. a spell that runs in circles. all blue across the sound. 

---

woke up to the 
creatures of the BQE 
outside my window 
trying to explain 
what i’m doing 
a million leo birthdays 
hearing my ex is still on his phone all the time 
the red won’t come out 
of my hair 
girl dinner vodka sodas 
by lot radio all the bad stuff 
that happened to us 
like gaining back all the 
weight 
d day at the brandy store 
girlhood at the listening party 
fear of aging 
fear of forgetting
end of summer
summer forever 

---

GIRL SO CONFUSING
cute outfit bad day 
drinking blue moon in the
overcast june heat wave 
$65 in my bank account until friday 
my friend says going on tour 
is like being at war only with find my friends 
one time a guy said i reminded him of an older version 
of his ex girlfriend 
my ex boss said he used to pray to god 
that he wouldn’t have to leave manhattan 
my boyfriend says we would have to keep the baby 
i want summer in the climate crisis 
to last forever 
with my faded orange hair 
and miles of beach that if it all burned down 
would exist as a jagged memory, 
sunscreen on my collarbone 
shoe gaze acid rap music is all one big 
delusion of grandeur 
if he wanted to he would 

---

2024
within five seconds of a song 
you know where it’s going 
forever pisces season in the city 
the glare of headlights and people 
still up in their rooms 

took too much 
to go to bed 

the time of night where everything 
is seasonless 

granite, dreary, romantic, petrichor 
a warm coat, safe, too much in love 

just february things 
kallmeyer jacket in my open tabs 
the snow that never came 
the way they said that it would 
that one ml buch song 
that’s in every single nts show 

split dessert at the fort greene saraghina 
got a boyfriend now 
got six cigarettes hidden in my closet 
cause you can’t go back 

there’s things i always thought i would have 
in my hands 

---

UNTITLED
when you’re always in the car 
you’re never in the action 

a spector watching every instagram story 
first 
four tet 
smoking in the back patio of mansions 
again 

red hair 
chanel beads 
helmut lang skirt suit 
on the real real 
hoover in the gloom 

texting a landfill of 
almost boyfriends 

time is the wall between us 
a fantasy 
that strayed off course 

---

UNTITLED
hot rain on the bus home at 
seven thirty am 
eighty four degrees in may 
hair dye running down my 
white cotton vest 
it feels good to be 
patient 
wearing barely any clothes 
to the japanese mini mart by my office 
nobody texts me 
but i know people are watching 
i’m getting more beautiful 
but less interesting 
i too can lay on the couch 
like inga copeland 
getting tipsy before my boyfriend 
comes over 
when it’s finally summer 
you’ll remember 
i liked you back too much 
then 
it was raining in manhattan 
the years feel like a sports game 
everyone is so good at their job 
that they just become 
that on google search 
i don’t care 
what you do 

---

MAY RIO REMIXED
east dulwich is like the park slope 
of london 
another guy i fucked 
more than once 
just got engaged 
when i get married 
we’ll live on costa and vodka 
go on holiday in glasgow 
with no kids 
ever 
twice i’ve written about albums 
that remind me 
of the patchwork of the city 
when you only have yourself 
stitched together 
half a bottle wine deep 
with the girls 
hot pink nails and no guitar music 
to speak of 
sometimes i think 
it could have been us 
dug in like a splinter 
maybe the problem 
was i just felt so lucky 
to have anything 

---

SPRING 2021 

things look better 
when you can no longer see them 
bloodshot green the slow 
industrial heartstrings of the city 
beyond arm’s length 
truthfully 
i don’t know how to drive 
the head rush of moving so sharply 
everything becomes cinema 
holding your hair 
back down the drain 

bring the world down 
to rest in my lap all intertwined 
in corroded metal 
dizzying circles 
flowers pulled apart 
one by one 

we fell in love 
the lowest point 
beneath the water 

---

NEW YORK CITY, FEBRUARY 2019

downtown my friend asks me if i’m seeing anyone, i said i drunk called some creative director multiple times when i was blacked out after an empress of show, he did not come over because he has a girlfriend now. i cut off all my hair, spend $200 on vintage clothes and buy a tall can of beer from the bodega across the street, smoke half a cigarette from days ago. i was doing a lot of coke, working two jobs but still getting on the list, and in the middle of the summer i had a panic attack from taking caffeine pills from LA and the social anxiety of my friends going to day parties without me. new york in july kind of felt like i did, sick through the sticky sheen of blocked out sky through the windows of storefronts on eldridge and lafayette, the burnt plastic smell of chinatown dawn, like everyday the sun was rising before you were going to bed. 

my ex boss who fired me says over coffee, feel free to keep sending me music. on the train back to brooklyn i listen to caribou for the first time in years and watch an older man take a swig out of a bottle of wine, put it back in the bag next to his wife, half smile. our love had just come out the first time someone ever called an uber for me, i came home and ran five miles listening to it on repeat. the sun is bleeding across a warehouse that didn’t give me an internship in 2015, when i gave up a poetry degree to work in music everyone still asks: are you an artist? and i have to disappoint them. 

“hmmmm well killing yourself slowly in other ways” reads a text from another friend, i found a new freckle on my stomach today and think about my hairdresser, who has a one year old daughter named phoenix and used to cut mile kane’s hair. there’s a two block stretch off canal street i can’t go anymore, it’s supposed to rain and i feel like an empty club after it shuts. 

at an interview yesterday someone told me i had a “great voice for radio” but mainly everyone thinks i’m from LA and the bartenders stop serving me after the second drink. chunks of my hair are falling out, i thought i lost my wallet on the way to a birthday dinner last week, until i got a dm from some artist in south williamsburg who asked me to hang out when i got it back. we rode the l train to the apple store to visit a frame he’d been commissioned to build, and i just said “that’s cool” and it felt like we were together. “think of something that costs zero dollars and i’m down”, he said the next time we talked, and i didn’t reply. 

do you ever think about all the times you’ve held hands on the subway in the morning with someone you’re not dating? the last time i went on a date they said, i’ll reevaluate when i’m thirty. a month of unopened tabs of mixes, sometimes music feels like a better way to say, i haven’t met anyone else, “future bubblers” as a genre tag and singing through the radio in deptford, when you know you know.