"I drink down dirt in droves and decide that I deserve decimals of what men have / A man told me that"
"My lips yearned for tobacco’s end, the only kiss that didn’t lie to me"
"I have to grab at this rope and tie it to something before it goes taut / and pray that it holds"
"I didn't ask if I could be this small or be wrapped up or be here, at this exact latitude, in this longing for a woman I barely know."
"I’m too young to forget every time I was too young to be happy. Am I still me without the childhood wall decals dimpled into my cheeks?"
"The only thing inevitable in life is death; the only thing that remains constant."
"When lovers have names of no one I’ve yet to know ... When lovers utter words from places I’ve yet to go"
"like the dust cold on his truck / brought to this snowless town / and melted at the feet"
"I was twenty-six when I took the pill. Nothing particularly extraordinary was happening in my life... Now, I’m two hundred and six."
"All my fibres gliding and seeping / Down into the other, / Sliding through the under, / Twisting to the glistening beneath"
The high school girls sneak out of their houses to climb through the forest after curfew, they leave jars filled with rosemary and frog legs on the front steps — they believe the ghost will curse their heartbreakers.
"When discussing the film at a family dinner, my cousin remarked that part of the reason she loved Asteroid City (2023) was because it had no overarching message, no larger point. Instinctually, I wanted to argue. I came out of the film with the impression that Asteroid City was one of Anderson’s most meaningful works."
"I wish I could be next to you on New Year's Eve without feeling the need to be picked up in my mom’s van. / I wish you felt like a congregation done right or the girls' bathroom at a loud club."
"The secret ingredient is almost always cloves, and a woman is born with all her eggs."
"How many walls will I put up to keep me caged? / How many soldiers will meet the same fate?"
"Faint light pours through the blinds like putty / Clenched through a fist"
"Born guilty into this world, / The first bite of fruit still rots in man’s stomach–"