Ignited eyes in candlelight, impaled inhale for swallowed knives; hiccupped inside. Vulture of my immortal shrieking jealousies aflame — Beyond the breathy pane, its wings betray the coming rain. Don’t you hear its squall over fernet and bar talk? The resonance of hell undulating over sidewalk. Listen —

I toss a napkin into the trash, the one I used to dry my hands, Barely damp and utterly clean — Then suddenly, in my vision gleams Scorched, squandered, The true and only jewel Beveled smooth by gravity’s pull. I turn it in my fingers — Corroded patina. O herald Of hopelessness, commence this coil! Blue petals and crude oil; The pungent narcissus In the dirt of my brain. I am not afraid Of death but reckoning, shame.

In police school, I was told, trainees must be shot with the white-hot tongue of a taser, just to taste it; every muscle consumed by electric teeth, only to be spit back out whole. Momentary madness: exorcism of the soul — which is to say, medicinal. A far cry from the crater in my brain that you left like a comet-tailed stroke. Grief is hot and burns slow. I eat my dinner that tastes like my day to chew my sadness and swallow, and try to catch fire tomorrow.

What is the half-life of an online presence? — One day, my boyfriend’s mom discovered she had a Twitter account. She’d never used it. She hadn’t created it. Yet there it was, unquestionably hers. If you had Googled her name, it would’ve shown up right at the top of your search results. …

On nostalgia and confronting a reality shaped by hypercapitalism — To be sure, I write this in an emotional hangover from listening to “The Greatest” on endless loop, the definitive track on Lana Del Rey’s new album and “obituary for America,” Norman Fucking Rockwell! Nostalgia is a hard theme to pull off without seeming hackneyed. After all, our culture is…

Is it the smoke on my tongue Or the smell of you (heavy, gone) That draws me to the window, And with gaping chest I swallow Sharp, dark air To clear away the taste And fill these hollow lungs. I am learning how to lose And how to wander fading halls— My night ghost finds you stirring, And wet in your eyes, wide With the terror of seeing death, Is the flicker of a nightlight Sleeping beside you in your bed.

Broken promises of an ever-connected utopia we don’t even want — Imagine a future in which your Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook feeds are so polluted with content by corporate interests that it’s nearly impossible to excavate the posts by your friends and family: the real people with whom we were promised social media would make it easier to “stay connected.” This…