#goodbyevitamin

If by real you mean as real as a shark tooth stuck

in your heel, the wetness of a finished lollipop stick,

the surprise of a thumbtack in your purse—

then Yes, every last page is true, every nuance,

bit, and bite. Wait. I have made them up—all of them—

and when I say I am married, it means I married

all of them, a whole neighborhood of past loves.

Can you imagine the number of bouquets, how many

slices of cake? Even now, my husbands plan a great meal

for us—one chops up some parsley, one stirs a bubbling pot

on the stove. One changes the baby, and one sleeps

in a fat chair. One flips through the newspaper, another

whistles while he shaves in the shower, and every single

But sometimes I forget where I am, Imagine myself inside that life again.

Recalcitrant mornings. Sun perhaps, Or more likely colorless light

Filtering its way through shapeless cloud.

And when I begin to believe I haven’t left, The rest comes back. Our couch. My smoke

Climbing the walls while the hours fall. Straining against the noise of traffic, music,

Anything alive, to catch your key in the door. And that scamper of feeling in my chest,

As if the day, the night, wherever it is I am by then, has been only a whir

Of something other than waiting.

We hear so much about what love feels like. Right now, today, with the rain outside,

And leaves that want as much as I do to believe In May, in seasons that come when called,

It’s impossible not to want To walk into the next room and let you

I want to start a snowball fight with you, late at night in the supermarket parking lot. I want you to do your worst. I want to put the groceries in the car first

because it’s going to get nasty. Because I was reading today in the science section of the paper that passionate love lasts only a year, maybe two, if you’re lucky.

Because I want to be extra, extra lucky. Because the article apologized specifically to poets—sorry, you hopeless saps—as though we automatically believe in love more

than anyone else (more than carpenters, kindergarten teachers, novelists) & have been pushing this Non-Truth on everyone. Because who knows what will happen,

but I want to, baby, want to believe it’s always possible to love bigger & madder, even after two, three, four years, four decades. I want a love as dirty as a snowball fight

in the sludge, under grimy yellow lights. I want this winter inside my lungs. Inside my brain & dream. I want to eat the unplowed street & the fog that’s been erasing

evergreens. I want to eat the fog only to discover it’s some giant’s lost silver blanket. I want to find the giant & return to him his treasure.

I want the journey to be long. & strange, like a map drawn in snow by our shadows shivering. I want to shiver against you, into you. I want the sound

of your teeth. I want the sound of the wind. I want to be like the kids with their plastic sleds, gliding down, all the way down the hill, then trudging

their sleds & snow-suited bodies all the way back to the top. I want to be how they do this, for hours, till sunset, till some sensible someone has

to come drag them away from the snow, the slope, the 3…                    2…                 1! of joy. I want to be the Anti-Sisyphus, in love

with repetition, in love, in love. Foolish repetition, wise repetition. I want more hours, I want insomnia, I want to replace the clock tick with tambourines. I want to growl,

1. What are 2-5 already published fiction books you think you want to read in 2023?

Answered this here!

3. Any poetry on your TBR?

So many! I want to read the poems of Sappho, Odyssey by Homer (I simply feel so incomplete knowing I haven’t read it), Rilke and Hilda Doolittle’s Triology. If you’ve any recommendations, kindly share!

5. What 2023 new releases are you most looking forward to?

this was so hard bc i pretty much love every song!! my top 3 and bottom 2 are definitely accurate though

ok this is WILD. you do in fact have rights because of sweet nothing being number 2 but i am shocked and confused at lavender haze being at 14!!!! glad to see you are appreciating question & mastermind. we’re not gonna talk about paris & midnight rain though