The Daily Commute: Why Girls Break Their Phones So Often

The Daily Commute: Perfume

A new cartoon from my "Daily Commute" series of comics about being catcalled 

"Dear Man in the parking lot who asked me if I like to party and then tried to win me over by spraying me with Ed Hardy perfume when I said, 'Not with you,' 

Ladies don't like that.

Sincerely, Me"

Roundup Zine

Oh hey, I just realized my little bit of prose ("Trashy Diva") is in The Roundup Writer's Zine: The Moonshine Edition. Check it out. www.roundupzine.com

The Origin of Red

Red started out as a hankering in Little Momma’s gut—a hankering for revenge in the form of a fuck, come to fruition in a gas station bathroom at 3 a.m. on a Sunday with the help of a frisky gas station attendant Red’s momma seen once or twice up at Bud’s Tavern smoking cigarettes and shooting pool.

Little Momma was the capricious type. Sometimes she spent all day curled up on the couch, thumbing through Babies ‘R’ Us catalogs, cooing longingly, a momma hen keeping her egg warm. But other days you’d find her out on the back porch in one of them plastic beach chairs half-asleep, menthol cigarette burning between her lips, cap missing from the half-finished bottle of Captain Morgan resting at her pedicured feet. “I’m gettin’ this thing outta me,” she’d holler. (“This thing” being Red.) “I’m callin’ the Clinic tomorrow.”

But she never got around to calling the Clinic, and months later Red ripped through her like the tiny rocket that she was.

Little Momma thought she might give Red up for adoption, but she couldn’t— wouldn’t—after she’d held all five-pounds of Red, her premature, soft pink flesh and blood, to her bosom.

Little Momma named her little baby Collette Jolene McCutcheon, but that didn’t matter because everyone only ever called her Red.

Red was a healthy baby, mostly. Tiny and bubblegum-colored with a tuft of fiery hair and a strong grip for something so little.

She never did have ten fingers, though. Nor did she have ten toes. She had six digits on each hand and foot and each digit was stuck to the next with a soft, veiny webbing.

Her eyes were funny. Bright blue, milky around the edges. Daytime was too bright for Red. Little Momma suspected it was because she was born at night.

Down Red’s back a growth, which most would call a tail, hung between her legs. It grew as she did, and as she got older she learned to control it. She swished it behind her when she walked, and it could be kind of sexy if you were into that kind of thing—girls with tails. More people like it than you might imagine.

The Daily Commute: My Domestic Fantasy

Interview with C. A. Mullins, Author of Klondike Oddjobs

C. A. Mullins is a poet and storyteller from Missouri who has travelled all over the United States and through many other parts of the world. Most recently, he spent several months in Alaska. Mullins went to Alaska after getting a job with a company that primarily made its money entertaining cruise ship tourists but was fired over certain “creative differences” with his boss not long after arriving. Essentially stranded in a freezing alien land, Mullins found other ways to make money and pass the time in Alaska, which he has written about in his latest book, Klondike Oddjobs. Mullins’ writing has all of the fanciful strangeness of Alice in Wonderland but often touches on darker themes—drugs, drink, alienation—not unlike the stories of Denis Johnson.

Mullins' book was released this morning, Sunday, November 10, 2013 and is available to the public for free at www.sarcasticbottlecap.com. On this website, there is also an extended version with 30 pages of bonus material available for the price of one tall pumpkin spice latte at Starbucks. So, if you enjoy Mullins’ writing and want to buy him a coffee, you can fund the caffeine buzz he’s going to need to finish the other four writing projects he’s currently working on. Also, he's scheduled to begin his U.S. book tour for Klondike Oddjobs soon, though specific tour dates and locations are still to be decided. 

I had the privilege of reading Klondike Oddjobs on early release, and yesterday got a chance to exchange a few words with Mullins about what writing this book was like for him.  

A. E. Urchin: I know that travel is a big part of your life, especially your creative life, and that for over the past few years you've visited many places. How has travel shaped your writing; in particular, how did this trip to Alaska affect you, and why did you choose it as the subject of this book?

C. A. Mullins: Exploration puts me into a state where everything is fresh and new. Every time I've started a different life with different characters, I've felt like there were suddenly millions of new possibilities, like anything can happen. And as I write, it helps me narrow down those possibilities into one very specific story. I actually didn't even realize I was writing this book until I had already written about a quarter of it. Mostly, these were just stories that I wanted to tell, and they just happened to fit together nicely. Alaska itself was strange to me. There was a lot of drama, and less isolation than one would expect. Like, when you live in a small town and everyone knows your secrets. It was fascinating, and I wanted to share that fascination.

AEU: Do you think you'll ever go back to Alaska?

CAM: I do think I'll go back, though I haven't decided if I'll be spending such a long time there again at any point. I'm planning a national poetry tour and I'd really like to do some readings of this work up there.

AEU: When I was reading Klondike Oddjobs, I actually felt that it captured a lot of strange truths about living in America, not just specifically Alaska, was that something that you intentionally did as a writer or was it more something that happened naturally?

CAM: Skagway, the town I was living in, has the weirdest subset of American culture. In the summer, it's completely dominated by greedy tourists who are there one day and gone the next, and by the people who are there to serve those tourists, whose presence feels even more fleeting because you have the time to get to know them before they vanish. Living in Skagway is very much like living in a gigantic shopping mall that just happens to be surrounded by beautiful, untouched wilderness. It makes you feel really big and really small at the same time. The comparisons that can be made with American life as a whole definitely came naturally, but I was acutely aware of them. Alaska during the tour season is America on steroids.

AEU: You wrote a lot, if not all, of this book while you were actually traveling and working the jobs that you've written about, so I wanted to ask what it means to you to be personally oriented on the page at a moment when so much was happening in the world around you, especially in a foreign place that you were still exploring?

CAM: I actually did write a lot of the poems and stories in the book as they were happening to me. A good example of this is the poem "I Am Trapped Under a Gazebo in the Pouring Rain in Bear Country," which was written while that exact situation was underway. I think writing while doing gives me the chance to explore my thoughts and emotions in the moment, in a way that's harder to do when you're looking back. It was exciting for me, because while I was writing Klondike Oddjobs, I had no idea how it was going to turn out, and I just had to trust that the right things would happen to me to make the book as interesting as possible. And thankfully, in a place like Skagway, interesting things happen without much effort. Admittedly though, I do regularly go out of my way to make things happen to me just so I can write about them, which is exactly why I wound up in Alaska in the first place. It was a bit disorienting at times though. There were days when I felt like I had to leave parties, stop doing what I was doing, just so I could write it down. When you've got a good line in your head, there's nothing that can keep it from coming out. There were some good portions of poems that I originally wrote as text messages to friends just so I wouldn't forget them, because too much was going on all the time.

AEU: What, besides travel, inspires you, as a writer? Who are your biggest influences?

CAM.: I'm especially inspired by interactions with people. Nearly everyone I've ever come across exists somewhere as a character, or some portion of a character, in some bit of fiction. Psychology is a big part of my writing. What makes people act the way they do. A lot of times I have trouble understanding people's actions, and so when I write a character, using real people helps me analyze what makes them tick. As for influences, I did a great deal of reading in Skagway. If there's any one writer who influenced this book more than any other, it was Richard Brautigan, who gets a namedrop in this book. His work was so disconnected from what was considered mainstream literature at the time. It makes me hopeful when I read him. That if a book like Trout Fishing in America can end up as a cult classic, maybe all hope isn't lost for an offbeat writer like myself. Some other authors I read in Alaska: Antoine de St-Exupery (there's supposed to be an accent on that last e, but I don't know how to do it on this keyboard), Cormac McCarthy, Bret Easton Ellis, David Sedaris, Hemingway. Lots of Hemingway. And lots more Richard Brautigan.

AEU: Though I feel that your writing could oftentimes be described as whimsical, there's actually a lot of pain in it. The worlds you create are funny but also dark. What are your feelings about this pain and darkness? Do you view them as positive things as well as negative things?

CAM: I think pain and darkness are necessary side effects of whimsy. Two sides of the same coin, as they say. In order to live a whimsical sort of life, you've got to make a lot of sacrifices. I've lost friends to my adventures. I have family members who say horrible things about me behind my back because I'm the kind of guy who disappears to work for a summer and write a book in Alaska, instead of settling down, getting a boring desk job, etc. And no adventure ever turns out to be exactly how you want it to be. You go out looking for some wild, funny thing, and you end up nearly getting mugged in London, or sleeping on the street in Bellingham, Washington (both things that have happened to me.) It's a theme I've explored a lot, and on a lot of different projects, because it always seems to have its way in the real world. Some sort of bizarre karma balancing effect. I like to think I'm good at seeing the humor in that pain though. Like, yeah, I got into this shitty place because I thought it was a good idea to run off to (insert place here.) Whimsy and despair are the cause and effect of my life. And yes, it's worth it.

AEU: Now that you've finished this book, how do you see it fitting into your life? Do you plan on starting any new projects soon?

CAM: Well, I do intend on touring with a lot of this material, doing bizarre and unconventional sorts of readings at strangers' house parties and street corners. As for the themes, I mean, I certainly learned a lot in Alaska, but I can't say just yet where I might go with those lessons. As for new projects, I'm planning on writing a similar book during my tour, with the working title Velociraptor Cockfighting, with one poem or story written in every town I visit. I'm also working on a new novel, called How To Cook Like a Single, White, American Man: My Life With Fido or Spot. It's about a man and his Shih Tzu as they struggle together through bachelorhood. It's got characters with names like The Eponymous Man, That Mormon Psychiatrist, Archibald the Talking Pancreas, and Mellon Collie Smashing Pumpkins Dog. And of course Fido or Spot, one character with no particular name at all. It'll explore some of the same themes as Klondike Oddjobs, along with the hypocrisy of Puritanical values, relationships, and growing up. And hopefully, it'll be funny.

AEU: One last question. You have an interesting dedication page in your book. It reads: “THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO EITAN MORSE. Look at me now, asshole.” Can I ask, who is Eitan Morse?

CAM: Eitan Morse was my boss at the first job I had in Skagway (which lasted about a month.) We didn't exactly get along. He was an Israeli military officer and I was that pot smoking slacker who only showed up when it was absolutely necessary. Something was just not right between us from the start. One day, me and a friend who was technically 20, just about a month before his 21st birthday, were walking away from the liquor store with huge black bags filled to the brim and Eitan just happened to drive by. Let's just say he wasn't happy. I already knew he didn't like me and there were rumors going around that the company had hired too many people for the summer and was getting ready to lay people off, so on my next work day, I climbed a mountain and screamed "fuck you, Eitan" from the top. It was liberating, and thankfully, it was easy to find a new job with a boss who wound up being like a family member to me. Alaska is full of drama. Even if some of it is self-inflicted.

The Daily Commute

Thinking about turning my experiences going to and from work in New Orleans into a short collection of comics:

Giant man: Damn gurl, what I gotta do to get in there?
Me: Well, there's actually no "there" to get into. I don't have a vagina. Sorry.
Giant man: I know you not tellin' me you a dude. 
Me: No, I just don't have genitals. Boating accident when I was a kid. Long story.
(Beat.) 
Giant man: So, I can't get in there then?
Me: Yeah, no, it's like a Barbie doll down there. No vagina. 
Giant man: Oh… Okay. 
(Man says nothing else to me and we wait for the bus in silence.) 

**** 

Man smoking a cigarette: Hey girl, what's your name?
Me: Alice.
Man: Can I take you out some time, Alice? We could get some drinks, I could take you out, take you to The Moon.
Me: (Horrified look on face) No, I vowed never to go back to space again. It's too dangerous out there.
Man: Not like the moon moon, The Moon, that place on Tulane Avenue.
Me: HA! You think I'm gonna fall for that? Not this time! Who are you working for?
Man: Oh, you crazy, huh?
Me: You can tell your boss he'll never take me alive. (Quickly walks away, suspiciously peering over shoulder every few seconds)

****

Waiting for the bus. A 30something-year-old woman with a blonde buzz cut wearing men's swimming trunks and a Hawaiian shirt approaches. 
Woman: I'll trade you my outfit for that dress you're wearing.
Me: Okay.
Woman: Alright, we'll do it real quick right here. 
(She lifts up her shirt and then reconsiders.) 
Woman: J/K, I'M DRUNK!!!!!!!!
(She runs away.)
Me: (to myself) I don't know who you are, drunk swimming trunks lady, but I hope that someday you will return to me, for you made off with my heart.

****

So, I don't know about you, ladyfriends, but when I'm biking and a man blares his car horn at me and then shouts to inform me that he wants to lick the sweat from my body, I usually go home and fantasize about marrying him. Marrying him, learning to cook for him, bearing him a son that he adores, and then on his birthday preparing a romantic feast for him. As he joyfully stuffs his face, he'll say, "Darling, this is delicious! Is it lamb?" And I'll shake my head. "Rabbit?" He'll ask. I'll shake my head again. "What is it? It's so juicy and tender." And then I will laugh like only a completely psychotic woman can and inform him that he's eating his son.
Just kidding! I love it when men scare the fuck out of me by honking at me and then scream obscene shit at me when I'm just trying to get home.

****

Forgive me Lord for I have sinned. I walked outside today and found a man in an I  Jesus shirt holding a cross and a megaphone preaching. He gave me an elevator look.
Jesus Freak: Ma'am, you're going to attract the wrong kind of attention in that outfit.
Me: How do you know what kind of attention I want to attract?
Jesus Freak: Men are going to approach you for the wrong reasons.
Me: Thank god I'm a dyke then. 

****

To the man who pulled over on the side of the road and shouted, "I own a clothing line, and you girls look like you could be my models," to my friend and I as we walked to her bike: You interrupted an excellent conversation about the objectification of women.

****

Dear man in the parking lot who asked me if I like to party and then tried to win me over by spraying me with Ed Hardy perfume when I said, "Not with you,"
Ladies don’t like that.
Sincerely, me

****

The Public Transportation Diaries 

8:40 Have arrived at bus stop 10 minutes early. Today will be a good day.
8:45 Maybe the bus will even come early and then I'll be early for work and everything will be wonderful.
8:50 Bus should be coming any time now.
8:51 Any time now...
8:52 Any time now............
8:55 Maybe it isn't coming at all.
8:56 Maybe the buses just aren't running today at all. Maybe it's a holiday that I don't know about.
8:58 (brief google search) No holiday, maybe there's been some sort of horrible national tragedy.
9:00 Maybe this is the apocalypse.
9:01 Maybe I should ask someone.
(looks around for someone to ask, no one is around)
9:03 Oh god, this is the apocalypse. Everyone is dead. What am I gonna do?
9:05 If I use that branch there, maybe I can break the window of that hardware store and get tools for the apocalypse.
9:06 I'll need nail guns, duct tape... How am I gonna carry this? Maybe they'll have wheelbarrows...
9:10 I should just take everything I possibly can so I can use it for weapon making and bartering for food later.
9:12 Maybe it would be better to break into the Walgreens first. They have medicine and food.
9:13 But what if there are armed people in there? I need weapons first.
9:14 But what if there are armed people in the hardware store?
9:15 There will probably be saws on hand. I can just grab a saw and it'll be fine.
9:16 How heavy are chainsaws? Do they need to be assembled?
9:17 May need to work on upper body strength before I attempt to wield a chain saw... Push ups!
9:18 (Bus arrives) Oh thank god.

Writing Contest/Journal Submission Advice

So, if you're the kind of person who enters writing contests or submits to journals, here's a short guide that I just made up to assist you in your literary endeavors as someone who's read a decent number of contest and journal submissions in her time:

1. If your story is single-spaced and/or in an unusual font and/or unreasonably long, here are a list of things that I will likely do to procrastinate reading your submission (no matter how awesome a story it may be): give my cats baths, go to the DMV and have my license renewed even though it doesn't expire for 2 years, clean the grout in my bathroom with a toothbrush, give other people's cats baths, reorganize all of the things in my pantry alphabetically and then by size and then by color, learn to reupholster furniture/reupholster all of my furniture, give my cats baths again because they've probably gotten dirty again by now. When I finally start reading your submission, I will be tired and cranky from all of the procrastination chores I was forced to do, and I will want so badly to not be reading it that I probably won't even get through the first page of it before deciding that I hate it.

2. Proofread your submission. At least proofread the first page. If you are illiterate, extremely lazy, or otherwise incapable of proofreading your work but still for some reason feel that writing is your true vocation, hire someone to proofread your work or have a friend do it. If you're too shy to have someone edit your work because you don't want them to judge you for not knowing the difference between "your" and "you're" but for some reason are not too shy to submit your work to literary journals and contests where strangers will read and judge your work, keep in mind that I, stranger judge, do not know you, I do not love you, and I will not forgive your misspelling of "there" because I don't know that you're really funny and a nice person and that you volunteer at a homeless shelter in your spare time and that you didn't finish college because you had to take care of your grandmother who was dying of lupus. I am judging you HARD. But I'm not judging you for your poor grasp of the English language; I am judging you because you're an idiot who doesn't appreciate that total strangers are taking time out of their days to read your shitty story enough to at least read it over before excreting it into a Word document and sending it out into the world.

LETHAL WEAPON 5: TSA, a True Story

(Setting: St. Louis airport, security line, every few people are having their bags checked extra thoroughly, I get selected for that, and a TSA officer takes out my keys and informs me that I can't bring my cat-shaped keychain through because it has recently been declared a lethal weapon in the state of Missouri, he tells me that they're going to confiscate it and file a report and then I can go get on my plane, I am waiting next to two other TSA officers, a male and a female, for a cop to come and sign the confiscation form so I can be on my way, as promised.)
Male Security Guard: Do you live in St. Louis?
Me: No, I'm just here for the weekend for my grandma's funeral.
Male SG: Oh. Sorry.
(pause)
Male SG: Why did you have this keychain on your keys anyway?
Me: I live in New Orleans.
Female SG: (Seriously) That's a very good reason to have that.
Male SG: Why? You don't feel safe there?
Female: It's a dangerous city. Women are attacked there probably more than anywhere else in the country.
Male SG: Oh… Well, where'd you get it?
Me: Well, my cousin got it for me in Missouri, but they have them in grocery stores in Louisiana. They sell them all over.
Male SG: Well, you shouldn't ever let an attacker close enough to you to use this thing anyway.
Me: Excuse me, *LET*? You think that women just *LET* attackers walk up to them? No, one second a dude is asking you for a dollar and the next he grabs you and tells you he's going to take you home. Women don't just *LET* people attack them.
Male SG: That happened to you? How'd you get him off of you?
Me: I happened to have a knife in my pocket and I pulled it out and it startled him when he saw it so he let go of me for a second and then I ran away.
Male SG: Yeah, but stuff like that doesn't happen that often.
Me: Actually, men yell threatening, sexually explicit things at me pretty much every day when I bike to work or wait for the bus, but if we're talking about particular situations where a weapon might need to be used, not long after that a guy started waiting outside my girlfriend's apartment for her so that he could expose himself to her and attempt to masturbate on her when she would try to walk to her car.
Female SG: Disgusting.
Male SG: Why didn't she call the cops?
Me: She called the cops REPEATEDLY.
Female SG: Did they ever catch the fucker?
Me: Not that we know of.
Male SG: That's fucked up. No wonder y'all feel like you need to arm yourself. (Takes keychain in fist and squeezes it.) Not that you could do much damage with something like this.
Female SG: No, a big guy could easily snap that in half before she even had a chance to scratch him.
(Cop arrives to sign the report. Takes the keychain from the security guard.)
Cop: Ma'am, I'm going to have to arrest you for possession of a deadly weapon.
(Security guards try to get the officer to just file the report and confiscate the keychain, telling him I live in New Orleans where the keychain is legal and that I'm just here for a funeral and etc. but he insists on arresting me.)

(Later, in the little criminal detainment room with the cop, I am crying hysterically)
Cop: I don't understand why you're crying. It really isn't that big of a deal.
Me: Well, my grandma's funeral was yesterday. I've honestly been trying not to cry all morning. Not to mention, you're arresting me and undoubtedly causing me to have to pay thousands of dollars that I don't have for carrying a cat-shaped women's self-defense keychain that I clearly had no idea was illegal, that *is* legal in almost every state, including the one I live in, and that was legally purchased for me in *this* state. I have no criminal record. You were asked to just confiscate it and let it go by the security guards, but it was YOUR decision to go ahead and make the arrest. So yeah, you get to deal with me crying right now. Sorry to make YOU uncomfortable.
(And then we sit awkwardly in silence and wait for a long time for some other smarter cop who knows the codes for the paperwork who can tell this cop how to fill out the arrest forms because he doesn't know how.)

Sign Language

I spent all morning explaining that often words speak louder than actions to me, and then you left for the store. I told you I love you and you turned your cheek to me for a kiss and then walked out the door without saying a word. 

Most of them did not take time to marvel at advancement in modern science; most of them had never considered that their intelligence could be artificial.

"Most of them did not take time to marvel at advancement in modern science; most of them had never considered that their intelligence could be artificial."

Ink & Paper

Me at the airport on the way to my grandma's funeral

Barbecue Maharajah

James Booker, BBQ Maharajah

Watercolor & Ink

Men Eating Hotdogs Outside Hit 'N' Run Liquor

Watercolor & Ink

For Amari, A Love Letter

It is only because I love you this much that I promise that I will never stop being your villain.

I will stand next to her in your mind so that all my dark eats up her light, and you can’t make out a single one of her flaws next to my black mass of wrong.

When she makes you cry, I’ll slither out of that lonely place in your skull and ask you to remember all those time that, though you begged for me to stop, I murdered all the parts of you that loved me right before your eyes. I will curl up in your ear and whisper true stories of my own selfishness and self-inflicted suffering.

That night that you showed up when I was on stage and said that all you wanted was to dance beside me, all you wanted was to feel the heat of my body, and I let you stay but would not allow you to touch me, not really touch me.

That night that you showed up on my doorstep scared and said all you wanted was to lie down next to me, all you wanted was for me to hold you through the night, and I let you into my bed but would not allow you my arms to wrap yourself in.

That night you showed me your scars and said that all you wanted was to feel wanted, all you wanted was for my love to stop the bleeding, and I let you myself kiss you but would not allow our lips to touch.

That night you showed me I hadn’t lost you and said that all you wanted was a smart girl like me, all you wanted was someone to care for, and I let you stay but would not allow you to call yourself my girlfriend.

That night you showed me you’d die without me and said that all you’d wanted was to see your ring on my finger, and all you wanted was for me to care that you’d thrown that ring in the river, and I let you cry and would not allow myself to begin to fix it.

That night you showed me the dress you’d picked out for your date with her and said that all she  wanted was to see your hair in braids, and all you wanted was for her to like you, and I let you go and would not allow myself to chase her car down the street when she picked you up from my apartment.

It took more than three years for me to fully dismember your love for me, for me to gut your heart and stitch it up hollow, so that you could fill it with feelings for someone better, someone who could love you the way that you deserve to be loved. And I hope you never know how happy I am that you’ve found her or how it hurts a little more each day that you still hate me. I hope you never find out about the mornings that I can’t get out of bed because I know you’ll never lie next to me again. I hope you never think that maybe I've changed, that maybe it could work now, because I know that thinking like that only holds me back.

Which is why, all I want is to be your villain. My place is that shadowy space in your memory, from which I appear only to reassure you that you’ve made the right decision marrying her and promising to love her happily ever after. I want to be your villain as long as it keeps you safe, as long as it keeps you from hurting, as long as it keeps you from regretting, as long as it keeps you from missing me, as long as you need me to be.

Rainbow Rita Learns to Show Her True Colors

Rough draft of the 1st in a series of feminist, LGBT-friendly children's books I want to do, let me know your thoughts! The later ones are going to be more explicit in their feminist and LGBT support, but I just wanted to introduce the character.

Rainbow Rita Learns to Show Her True Colors

Once upon a time, there was a Momma and a Papa. They were gray people who lived in a gray house and were happy with their gray lives. Except sometimes they felt like something was missing.

One day, they realized that what they were missing was a child. So, Momma and Papa Gray decided to have a baby together.

Many months later, it was Valentine’s Day, and Momma Gray gave birth to a healthy baby girl.

She weighed eight lbs. and was 20 inches long. She had ten fingers and ten toes. And she had the most amazing rainbow hair that anyone had ever seen. They decided to name her Rita.

The doctors and nurses told her parents, “We’ve never seen a child with such beautiful, colorful hair. Your daughter is very special.”

But Momma and Papa Gray weren’t ready for a rainbow daughter. They were afraid that other people would pick on her because she was different, and that scared them. Still, they took Rita home and promised that they would raise her and love her no matter what.

Rita was smart and strong. She liked when her mom and dad read books to her. She also loved to play outside and to look for bugs, but she loved getting dressed up and having tea parties with her stuffed animals, too.

Sometimes Momma and Papa Gray took her to the park to play with other kids. They didn’t want the other kids to know that Rita was different, though, so they put lots of hats on her to cover up her rainbow hair and protect her from being teased.

“We got these hats special for you, Rita,” Momma Gray told her.

“Never take your hat off,” said Papa Gray. “That way, no one will ever know that you’re different, and you will be safe.”

Rita knew that her parents loved her and wanted only the best for her, so she listened to what they said.

But when Rita started school, it became clear that her hair wasn’t the only special thing about her. She was the smartest girl in her class. She learned to read before anyone else.

And she was the fastest runner, even faster than any of the boys.

Sometimes other kids got jealous of Rita, but she was always so nice and friendly that no one could be mad at her. She had lots of friends.

 Everyone wanted to be on her team when they played sports at recess, and everyone wanted to sit by her at lunch. Momma and Papa Gray were very happy that Rita was so popular.

One day, at recess, it was very hot outside. Rita was playing tag, and she was getting really sweaty. She thought it would be okay to take her hat off for just a second to cool off.

When the other kids saw Rita’s hair, they were amazed at how pretty it was. Everyone stopped playing tag so they could look at her hair.

“I’ve never seen anyone with rainbow hair,” said Thomas.

“It’s so pretty!” exclaimed Daisy. “I wish I had rainbow hair!”

“Hey! She’s Rainbow Rita! That’s what her name should be!” Maria shouted, cheerfully.

Then, Miss Allie blew her whistle and said that recess was over, and the kids all started heading back inside. When Rita was about to put her hat back on, Daisy went over to her. “Why do you always cover up your hair, Rainbow Rita? It’s so beautiful!”

Rita was confused. “You don’t think it’s weird that it’s different from everyone else’s hair?”

“Of course not!” Daisy cried. “I love it! If I were you, I’d never wear a hat again! You’re Rainbow Rita! You shouldn’t try to cover up who you are.”

Rita was very happy that everyone liked her hair, especially Daisy. She decided not to wear her hat for the rest of the day, and everyone gave her lots of compliments.

When she got home from school, she told Momma and Papa Gray about how everyone loved her rainbow hair and how they all called her Rainbow Rita now.  “I know that I’m not like everyone else, but I feel extra special! Everyone loves me even more now that they’ve seen my hair,” she told them.

 At first, Momma and Papa Gray weren’t happy that Rita didn’t want to wear the hats anymore. They were afraid that someone would be mean to her because she was different.

But in the end, they realized that they loved their daughter for who she was. It was silly of them to ask her to hide such a beautiful part of herself.

Momma and Papa Gray told Rainbow Rita that they were sorry. “It was wrong for us to try to hide how special you are, Rita,” said Momma Gray.

“We were just trying to protect you because sometimes other people are afraid when they see people who are different from them. Sometimes it makes them mad,” Papa Gray explained.

“Why would people be afraid of me? That’s silly!” said Rita.

“It’s very silly,” Momma Gray agreed. “But people can be silly sometimes.”

“We’re sorry for being so silly, Rita,” said Papa Gray. “We want you to know that we love you, and you never have to worry about hiding who you are ever again.”

Momma and Papa Gray gave Rainbow Rita a great big hug.

Then, they threw all of Rita’s old hats in the trash together so that she never had to wear them again.

Rita felt much happier now that she didn’t have to cover up her rainbow hair. Everyone she met wanted to be her friend. 

Momma and Papa Gray were very proud to have Rainbow Rita as their daughter. They decided to take a lesson from Rita and let more of their true colors shine through, too.

And together they all lived happily ever after.

Lessons in Self-Preservation

I am proud to confess to you that I am a murderer. Please believe me when I say that we'd all be better off if we did a little killing every once in awhile.

This morning I looked in the mirror and saw that my eyes looked more tired than usual. And that's when the voices started up—sad, mean, angry, desperate voices—familiar voices. These voices have been with me since I can remember. When I was learning to walk, they were there, telling me I wasn't strong enough to stand on my own two feet. They've kept me from sleeping—incessantly whispering in my ears that failure is inevitable. They've kept me from eating—pinching the fat on my side and tsk-tsking when I've thought of ordering pizza. They've kept me from loving—shouting so loudly that I could never hear my sweetheart's soft words over those goddamn voices' unkind cries.

But it was not until today that I actually crawled inside myself and found a horde of sick, sick people living inside me. I came face-to-face with a girl with eyes the color of three-day-old bruises and hair the color of thick scabs, and it was when I noticed the scars on her wrists that I recognized her. She was the part of myself who was always trying to disassemble Venus razors and take them to my wrists at the slightest sign of emotional turmoil. She was the one who, when I was sad and she without a blade, would dig her fingernails into my flesh until blood was drawn. She was the one who stashed a bottle of sleeping pills in the drawer by my bed and whispered as I sobbed, "Just finish the whole bottle, darling. And maybe you'll wake up tomorrow and feel better, or maybe you won't wake up at all! And wouldn't that be marvelous if you didn't wake up at all?"

"There is no reason to be afraid to die" were her last words before I forced handfuls of pills down her throat. I handed her a bottle of merlot and watched her drain it. I was only slightly surprised that she did not struggle when I took each of her wrists in my hands and cut her from palm to elbow. Her blood poured from her body like wine from a broken bottle, and I felt an intoxicating surge of strength at the sight of it.

After that it was easy. I forced fountain pens through the eyes of the cantankerous old man who was constantly convincing me that my words weren't worth reading and reduced him to a wrinkly twitch before bashing his skull in with a dictionary.

After snapping her twig bones, I reached right into the ribcage of the waif who'd been bent on starving me skinny since I can remember. I devoured her plump heart before her eyes and did not worry about the calories.

And then, without batting an eye, I took a blowtorch to her sister's face, that bitch who never let me leave the house without makeup on.

Using the muscle in my thighs, I strangled the broad-shouldered man who'd made me believe I was never strong enough.

And then the thin man who'd called me a slut night after night screamed, "But I'm a nice guy!" before I castrated him and watched him writhe before he bled out.

I slaughtered every part of myself who'd ever caused me to start a sentence with "I can't." I tore limb from limb every person inside me who'd ever made me feel small. And when all of the corpses of the voices who had made it impossible to love myself were finally in a pile, I felt better than I had in my entire life.

I painted my lips and cheeks and eyelids with the blood of the dead parts of myself, and when I caught my reflection in the crimson pool at my feet, I found myself so fiercely beautiful that I never wanted to look away. As I stared into the scarlet, I realized that I had created for myself an endless supply of ink. Now I'm free to create a million works of art, but first, I want all of you to be free, too.

You are all you will ever certainly have, and it is essential to love yourself. Self-hatred is a crime punishable by death—either your death or the death of all those voices in your head insisting that you're unlovable. Never in my life have I condoned violence, but after today, I say if there is a part of you that makes you hurt so much that sometimes you question whether life is worth living, if there is a part of you that paralyzes you, prevents you from filling your life with meaning, he or she must be sacrificed. Take a machete to your meanest parts. Poison the pieces of you who hold you back. Turn their blood into poetry. You owe it to yourself. You'll feel better, I promise.

Business Cards are in!

Poetry Quarterly's Spring issue is out!

My poem "A Stranger Speaking in Tongues" appears in the Spring 2013 issue of Poetry Quarterly! They have a free digital version up on their website right now, but there's a print version for sale on their website and on Amazon, too.

I made this nice official website!

www.youwriteryouliar.com
www.youwriteryouliar.com
www.youwriteryouliar.com
www.youwriteryouliar.com
www.youwriteryouliar.com

It's hosted by Tumblr, so if you have a Tumblr account you can follow it and get all the updates of my writing and art on your dash!

Glitterwolf Magazine, Issue #4

So, my story "Her Secondhand Smoke" is in this issue of Glitterwolf Magazine!! Glitterwolf is an LGBTQ magazine based in the UK. I'm really excited about it. Print and digital copies are available on their website, if you're interested. There are a lot of really great writers published in this issue; I feel really honored. Check out Catherine Fitzpatrick's "Six Women I'm Not" and Rhiannon Thorne's "Adeline Killed the Baby," so beautiful.

Fire: A Love Story

Tell me again how we were bound from birth like the wildest animals bred in captivity, born in cages. Tell me again how baptism by fire won't work on wolves like us. Tell me again how even star-crossed arsonists deserve to be loved.
Tell me about the time when you were fifteen, the first time you put something burning between your lips; tell me again how I was busy wailing, bloody, cold, eyes opened for the very first time.
Tell me about that night that you turned twenty and didn't care if you lived or died, how your lungs felt like they'd crumble easy as ash—how that same night my parents began to hide the lighters because I'd stick my fingers in the flames wanting so badly to catch fire.
I can't remember if it was when you were turning thirty or if it was the year that I turned sixteen that we made homes inside warm women's arms and curled up quiet. Wasn't it within a month that we burned those homes at the stake for aiding and abetting known criminals? How many fires did we start in all? How many innocents do you think were burned?
Tell me the one about how a woman loved you for who you could be, just like a girl loved me for who I once was. Tell me how she saw the light in you, just like she refused to see the dark in me. Tell me again how star-crossed arsonists deserve to be loved.
Remind me again about that time that I thought true love meant the end of self-inflicted suffering because I found a girl who'd use me as an ashtray. Tell me how I made that false discovery at the same moment that the doctors were sure they'd found cancer in you, and you kept on with your pack a day. Tell me how when I woke up alone on a red-stained pillow and licked crusted blood from my lip, they told you there was no tumor. Tell me how your girlfriend said she'd stay on the same day they insisted that the smoke was causing my nosebleeds. Tell me how my lips were numb from tobacco when you found her suitcases packed and ready to go.
Tell me about when we ran out of lighter fluid. Tell me about when we ran out of cigarettes. Tell me about when we were unhappy and there was no one left to blame. Please, remind me again how star-crossed arsonists deserve to be loved.
Tell me how they chained us before we ever met, tell me how watching me walk through your door felt like coming face-to-face with the convict you'd been cuffed to your entire sentence, each of us with hands crossed behind our backs and bound together. Tell me again how when my skin blisters you feel it. Tell me again how when you suffocate from the smoke I stop breathing. Tell me again how we each love an arsonist though we hated ourselves half our lives.
Don't say that I'm still a child with my hand held to a candle. Don't tell me you're just an addict with a box of matches. Leave out how this could consume us. I just need to hear you tell me one last time how even wild animals who've burned down whole forests deserve love like ours.

Winter Tangerine is out

My poem "Rorschachs and Russian Dolls" can be found here in the first issue of the Winter Tangerine Review! Print copies are also available here.

The General

lizard-skinned half-buzzed
head flesh glittering gold
in self-created holes black
boots spit-shined no bra
bars through star-lined
nipples The General is
the creep who shakes me
from sleep makes a slit
in my soul crawls straight
through the hole walks
around inside me operates
my limbs like a demolitionist
at the controls of a wrecking
ball takes charge of my
tongue and turns it silver
dips it in acid uses it on girls
in the bathrooms of dive bars
with no intention of calling
in the morning talks like
a Nazi shitshow charisma
oozing from every pore
she swells my glands with
the use of powder and
sick sick sweat spends my
hard-earned cash on hash
red-eyed nosebleed headaches
premature signs of aging
does my hair up in a style
that says this is the fun-loving
wrung before rockbottom
she marionnettes me
never lets me find a safe
hole to stay in she drags my
conscience from behind
the wheel by his heels so
she can drive me take me
for a joyride jump ship
split seconds before the
moment of impact and like
always leave me alone to
look on singed hair blistered
body smoking horrified

Crack the Spine Issue 68

Two of my pieces of microfiction ("Jinx before turning blue" and "May through December") appear in this issue of Crack the Spine! Check it out:
Crack the Spine, Issue 68

pillowtalk

i love a man who makes
me a bed from his own
warm bones who lets me
lay up in his junkyard
arms with the breath
of a dying dog licking
at my neck until the day
has met its death in the
dumpster out back

when i leave my bed
of ruin barren to sleeptalk
to the tune of his halfrusted
organs settling like a
stormworn st. claude
shotgun my sleep is
garnished with visions
of the bluedress dead
girl hung from the doornail
the bloodstained hogfaced
butcher pumping his
accordion like a rifle
the corpulent green
corpse hollowed out
and used to serve
popcorn the most lifelike
babydolls with heads
that come unscrewed
and spray crimson when
they meet pavement

i love a man who reads
me back my dreams
in the daylight who
asks about the color of
the door the level of dust
on the frame the fabric
from which the hanging
woman's dress is stitched
the pattern of the blood
spattered on the pigman's
apron the expression on
each of their faces and
never once demands
to know the meaning

Crack The Spine: Issue Sixty-Eight Contributors

Crack The Spine: Issue Sixty-Eight Contributors: A little preview of our upcoming contributors...

Two of my pieces of microfiction will be published in the next issue of Crack the Spine! Stay tuned!

An Autobiography in Haiku Form

A dominatrix
nesting in the space between
lover and fighter

Survival Tactics

Turn your demons into masks
and use them to scare yourself
into getting your shit together

Turn your fears into fishing poles
and learn to feed yourself for a lifetime

Turn your regret into a weapon,
a broadsword or ray gun,
hold it to your own throat
when you feel yourself giving up
hold yourself hostage
until you make yourself proud

Negative Nancy/mental institution

"I'm pretty sure you belong in a mental institution."

Skin to Skin is out!

I am published in the second issue of Skin to Skin: The Art of the Lesbian. Check it out! It's a really pretty magazine with lots of beautiful poetry in it. I highly suggest it to all my queer lady friends. 

It's available in print or digitally. Here's the link where you can find it: Skin2Skin.

*Side note: There are few feelings better than seeing poems that you wrote about exes who now hate you in print in a gorgeous magazine.

what it means to be in pieces

You have never

truly loved until

you have come

to understand the

plight

of the puzzle

ripped into jagged

pieces separated from

her soul mates

by the beast

known only as

jigsaw

The Collector

I collect poems

like pennies

plucked from

the cracks

of sidewalks

I keep them

in jars

with holes

piercing

the metal lids

just in case

petal-plucked and rootless

My scanner is such a piece of shit. I really need to invest in a new one. This is a rainy day drawing. Ink and watercolor on paper. 

A Theory of Evolution, a poem by Alice Urchin

The audio and video don’t sync up perfectly, which makes this kinda weird (especially because it’s such a somber topic), but the audio is really the important part, so I’m still posting it in hopes that you’ll be able to ignore the weirdness. 

This is a poem I especially felt I needed to write after all of the (mostly horrifying) coverage of the Steubenville Rape Case.