Your Favorite Sandwich: Becca, Lettuce + Tomato

my sleep has been restless and uncompromising. i wiggle before bed, wiggle when i wake in the night, wiggle wiggle wiggle. something is awry.  five days ago i concentrated all the heat in my body to my belly until i felt it turn my stomach into bread. the sweat behind my knees is so egrecious sometimes i think i feel it drip down to my heels. and it doesn't. something else is crawling there.  the mosquitos here. when i kill them, all i see is black.  once, a friend told me he let mosquitos drink his blood. meditated on it. said it was his gift to them. they needed it more than he did.  discomfort breeds cortisol. it is in my best interest to defeat myself.  don't pick your tattoo scabs. just don't.  when i can't defeat myself, i simply allow the reality of me to fall away. dream myself back to joy.  in fort collins, my shadow walks three feet behind me. i wonder if it's me i'm afraid of.  i've taken to memory in the present tense. as in, the power...

Babes and bots,  It's come to my attention that my Colorado peers don't believe in recycling. In a quick poll of my closest companions, it just so happens that only my partner and my friend's nine-year-old daughter believe in recycling. I decided to do some research on the issue. Obviously, I have some strong opinions.  what's the deal with recycling?  Recycling is what we do with our plastics, paper, aluminum, glass, and cardboard products when we are done using them. Ideally, we are done using them when they no longer serve a purpose. Realistically, we are done using them when they have achieved but one of their potential tasks. Then, they go to a facility with huge machines that process our recycling and, ideally, turn it into something else. Recycling is the process by which waste is turned into usable material. Take a yogurt cup, for example. When you've finished your yogurt, maybe you rinse it out diligently and place it in the recycling bin. Or perhaps you br...

Dear babes and bots,  Once again, I am writing to you to let you know that I am sorry, I am late, I haven't written you in a while, and I'm sure you forgot about it. That's good. That's what I like to hear.  in December and January... I was traveling and miraculously not getting COVID. I thought for sure it would happen. When I was in college, I remember going everywhere with reckless abandon; I missed my stop because I was sleeping on the train and managed to find myself in Delaware, I drank until I couldn't walk straight and relied on friends to carry me home, I was always late, or oversleeping, or going on a date, or canceling a date, or getting stood up. Ah, to be 21 and blissfully unaware. I stopped drinking so much when I realized the alcohol turned me into a public nudist, or someone who peed between rows of police cars, and I could very likely lose my job if caught. If we were all operating in a global pandemic like I did in college, everywhere we went would...

Babes and bots,  How's it going? Are you also dairy-free? Do mysterious Thanksgiving leftovers make you fart silently, atrociously, or fantastically? Are you reading this in a bedroom? A living room? At work? In the car? In an office somewhere you'd rather not be? Are you sad? Is your dad a jar of ashes in your car? Yeah. I guess that escalated quickly. Don't be alarmed, read a book. Maybe one by Alice Wong called  Year of the Tiger: An Activist's Life . It has pictures!  Or maybe read this poem by Chen Chen about poop and buttholes and anal sex, somehow titled "Winter." Or maybe read this other poem by Chen Chen, "When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities" Or maybe talk to yourself the way you did when you were younger. Give yourself that agency. Do it!  Or maybe half-ass something, like I half-assed this blog post. And then realize you can't half-ass anything, not really. Not even wiping your butt. Everything you do you do wi...

Babes and bots,  Fall! Fall is happening! It's frigid when I bike to school every morning and I think the bones in my hands will push themselves out of their flesh. I am tired and stressed and everything is a bit harder because it's darker now. And that's okay I think.  In checking out the speakers at the two events this week, I found Counterath Press and came across a fellow blogger ! Jose Antonio Villarán's book, Open Pit , is out with Counterpath Press and was nominated for the Northern California Book Award. How cool! And one of the founders of Counterpath Press came to CSU. How cool! Her name is Julie Carr. This amazing organization has a weekly food bank, community garden, and exhibition space, AND they publish books. I think sometimes I forget that there are other presses, sometimes more interesting and compelling presses, that do cool work that doesn't get eaten up by the institution or revered prizes, work that is wild and non-normative and big. I love that...

lately, everything is a poem. the acknowledgement at the beginning of a book                 for jenifer Rénee Owen                                                                                            who am I to say                                                                                                               ...