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How to Want by Trevor Neil White
I should’ve drank more in college.
That knowledge sobered me, ironically,
acknowledging the only thing standing
between me and making brothers or lovers
was losing the prudish delusion that if I just kept soda in my Solo
and shortcuts to short stories on my desktop,
I could thumb my French nose at those vapid upchucker-class prats
and emerge the right-brained victor.
I always had more to say, anyway,
with a carefully planned paragraph
than a flip cup-adjacent conversation
or morning-after, mid-network handshake.
Cities Where You’ve Lived, As Boyfriends by Leah Mueller
Portland is your hipster boyfriend with a tongue ring, the one who is always stoned, the guy who can’t be counted on for a commitment. He wants to have many other lovers, and doesn’t care if you have them, too. Portland will get together with you when he feels like it, not the other way around. Portland insists that you be hyper-aware of popular culture, and treats you as if you are stupid if you are unable to keep pace with him. You won’t be able to keep pace, because Portland lives for Doug Fir concerts, shots at the Sandy Hut, and standing in long lines for doughnuts and tacos while sporting a three-day beard growth. You and Portland have a stormy but loveless romance, and you finally leave him for Kalamazoo. When you see Portland again a few years later, you marvel about how much he has matured, and feel sad that the two of you met at the time that you did. Portland then acts like he wants you back, but he really doesn’t.
Adjust by Nick Stokes
Drink coffee. Pack food, gear, shingles, propane, feed, a mattress, rebar, a box of cookies and whiskey, mail, nails. Drink coffee. Bullshit. Wrap. Eat a ham-and-cheese sandwich. Feed. Fix tack, build ropes, bullshit. Knock a rock from a shoe. Dunk in the river. Long. Drink beer. Eat. Read. Stop.