I was not popular and I was not unpopular. To invite admiration or ridicule, you first have to be seen. So the story of the cell that once divided inside me and its subsequent obliteration is also the story of the first man who saw me.

I pull up our email chain and find the mixtape. I sent it at 1:43 a.m., after the author wrote to tell me that squid have doughnut-shaped brains. I look at the track list and wonder where I went wrong. The esophagus passes through a central hole in the brain. If they overeat, they risk brain damage. I wonder if I was too earnest, if I relied too

“You think you should get what you want, when you want it, and life doesn’t work that way. Art doesn’t work that way, and that’s why you’re not as good as you could be,”

I am good, but not good enough, which is worse than simply being bad. It is almost.

However, his hands are excellent. They are warm and wide and soft, and I have not been laid in months. For a moment, I’m sure I’m going to cry, which is not unusual, because I cry often and everywhere, and most especially because of this one Olive Garden commercial. I excuse myself and run to the bathroom, where I look into the mirror and reassure

I talked to the atheist on the phone, at first about homework but then about other things. When I went to his house, he played King Crimson and I told him my mother did not believe in God. I kissed him on the mouth and he didn’t kiss me back. I understood that I had engaged seriously with someone who only engaged theoretically, and I was so

You should be grateful, she says, the light from the TV illuminating her face, you have all the time in the world.

I stress my editorial involvement, though the author of the Flounder series stopped calling me when I made him a mixtape.

His messages come with impeccable punctuation. He is fond of words like taste and spread. The empty text field is full of possibilities.