where do babies come from? 
babies come from their dicks same as anyone 
u big dummy 

i want to get drunk and look at a candle with you tonight 
snowboarding horses couldn’t stop me 

i’m an optimist 
that’s what i like about you 

when we fit ourselves together 
we are truly a power rangers 
the black ranger the white ranger the asian ranger 

i read about a swimming pool next to a crematorium 
they actually use the heat from cremations to warm the pool 
thats me and you 
those two stupid buildings 

we’re gonna forget so damn much when we’re dead 
like why are they even called cobwebs 
i’m sorry i didnt realise a spider 
is actually a sweetcorn 

i am a long night at the river with you 

my peanut butter and jam both ran out in the same sandwich 
so truely romance is alive in the world today 

if i ever become an awesome rocket launcher then please 
just shoot me 

well now look at us 
all green kissing 
in the light of the exit sign 

finally

_
Crispin Best
http://litonlit.bandcamp.com/track/the-illuminati-jokebook-crispin-best

i saw one ladybug
on the inside of a window
and one on the outside
just circling
one another

so basically
they’re in love
on the internet

_

Crispin Best

http://www.everyday-genius.com/2013/02/crispin-best.html

Your belly hair, like hundreds of little spiders’ legs, will pass lint up from your underwear to your bellybutton

It’s like an assembly line

One January morning when I am thirty years old, I am at work and I take the garbage out to the dumpster

It is so cold out

I walk to the park across the street and sit down and watch cars park in the parking lot and people walk in to get coffee or lunch or something

I watch my breath fog in front of me

The last girl I had sex with said she thought I was “gonna go crazy on her”

She told me I could touch her anywhere except her vagina because she has a boyfriend

She said she could do whatever she wanted to me though

She went down on me and then we had sex

She said she tried heroin for the first time that day

Mark locked me and Rachel in the bathroom with him and told us about how Zack said he could beat him at wrestling but that he would definitely win if they wrestled

I asked Rachel if the girl who tried heroin for the first time that day was still at the party

We went to look for her

I found her and said “you can sleep on my couch if you need a place to stay tonight”

She said “I’m going to sleep in your bed”

The next morning we went to eat breakfast and she paid for it with her mom’s credit card and when I mentioned Fraggle Rock she said “I think I’m a little too young for that”

Then she said the thing about me going “crazy on her” in a really nonchalant, calm tone

There is a button you can click on Facebook that then offers you the choice to ‘Block’ or ‘Poke’ the person whose page you’re looking at

Lint gathers and travels up your pelvis and dust shatters like broken glass

I pick the lint out when I am in the shower and someone said the discovery about dust shattering will help people predict the weather

In the shower I let the water hit my beard for a long time because that is one of the best feelings I can have

Petting the dog and hot water on my beard

Dust shattering and lint traveling

Some scientist who says this will help predict the weather

My dog who is sometimes bothered by how often I want to lay with my head on her stomach

_

Michael Inscoe

http://www.everyday-genius.com/2013/02/michael-inscoe.html

On the margins of every moment in your life

are vibrant stars that clash, collapse
then become a part of you
your lens is not only perfect but celestial
and soon you will become a constellation

unrecognizable to the untrained eye

you are everything you have ever taken in
you are the amalgamation of 20 years’ hard work

the seams of the visible spectrum
are reproduced to you as your own essence
seeing is the origin of the process of becoming


surround yourself, then, with the brightest colors possible
and let the plane fold back to permeate you

_

James Ganas

http://www.everyday-genius.com/2013/02/james-ganas.html

I don’t wanna take the items of your life and pile them up and burn them on a barge floating away from the harbor 

did I brush my teeth yet did I get enough sleep 

I hear drills a dozen eagles carry a duffle bag of money above the water tower 

I am not important I reject mastering fame because water drips from the umbrella 

there are bars on the window there’s bars on these windows bars are on the gotdamn window metal bars while the makeup stays in the shape of a face and the arm reaches into the lamp light suddenly wire hangers sway in the closet 

how many pieces of fuzz must come off the gloves before the gloves come off 

I whistle to the windy I confess I have eaten bubblegums my heart is just a ziplock full of bloodly 

bag in a box in a bag smiles move within these structures made with calm wrists I walk under the scaffold as you build it

A forest of calliopes a forest of churches a forest in the heart of a desert where I drop to one knee and look you in the eyes 

it isn’t all so pretty 

big deal 

I want to go up the escalator toward the illuminated billboard toward the hand holding my dreams I jump for them I wave my arms no luck jewelry dangles from the body into the cold night

inside is epicly and romance and this lifetime is just a forest full of furby it’s okay you mourn your loss I’ll mourn mine and in between we can spin at the top of the hill laughing toward the airplanes circling until they are cleared to lower their gears and land on the runway and hit the breaks and feel the g-force of return in our graceful machines

_

Mike Bushnell

http://www.everyday-genius.com/2013/02/mike-bushnell.html

Darling the monsters are more than internal
Darling the blackness; my thoughts
Darling I’m afraid that if we take off these unicorn heads we’ll have to start playing pretend
Darling there is a dead body in the bathtub
Darling the clouds are not for us to devour
Darling what if I painted my lips with black glitter?
Darling remember the time I told you I was a murderer in disguise?
Darling the body now bones
Darling why is it so hard for you to understand me?
Darling even my best friends don’t understand me?
Darling even I don’t understand myself?
Darling my mother kneels at night and prays for my mind
Darling your black heart a swamp a crushed tissue box a tongue in a glass box a TV left on; blue light; artificial reality: a want made real through squeezing eyes + fists

Squeeze those eyes squeeze those fists, bitch (This isn’t Kansas, this is South Bend, Indiana.)

Darling I love you
Darling fuck you and your featherstone heart
Darling I know I’m a fucking paradox and my inner complexities are the holes in your wall and the reason you bought a motorcycle, but love me, anyways?
Darling LOLZ jk, I don’t need your love. I’m a motherfucking feminist.
Darling this is the climax of a story with no hero
Darling I’m trying to stop the whispers from seeping into the veins of my hellhole heart
Darling don’t think for a second that these feelings swirling in my mouth are cotton candy
Darling believe me I tried swallowing, but they remain
Darling believe me shooting fish does nothing for your general health
Darling I pulled the words from my teeth and placed them in paper lanterns and placed the paper lanterns into the river and watched them float and flow and disappear
Darling these songs are haunting me
Darling you are in the eyes I see when I look in the mirror
Darling I am sorry I hopped on a plane and flew half a country away
Darling I’m scared to return; I’m scared of the tangibility of change
Darling I know I’ve always struggled with acknowledging reality, but even I can’t keep imagining you.

_

Anna Lei

http://www.everyday-genius.com/2013/02/anna-lei.html

i went to the DMV today, felt like a human
i’m finally a human now
thanks

i let you come over and hold me because i find the way you trace my arm fascinating
and the way i can never be happy around you
and the way my pillow smells of your curls long after you’ve left

we lie down on a mattress on the floor and instead of being nice when you wrap your legs around mine, i am apprehensive

you nuzzle me into you
i think of something ridiculous and i laugh
but i can’t articulate it
and i feel a little bit farther away from you

lie down under these christmas lights with me
even though it is not christmas
and you have pointed this out

you never let me hold your hands
so i put them next to yours and move them around a bit
you never let me be happy so hug you a little less
i move my fingers up and down and around yours, lightly grazing them
and i swear i could do this for hours
you say ‘dopamine’ in a small voice two times so i know you’re still there
you tell me about your hands and your grandfathers hands and of churches and gods

i tell you i don’t write poetry anymore
but i guess i was lying

whisper deep spanish mumbles into my ear and remind me:
i am only a dove

you tell me all the things i’ve said to you and i feel devoid of emotion
funny how you can make all the boys seem like little paper cranes
you take it away and you fold it all wrong
but i guess that’s how that works, isn’t it?

i will let you come over if you promise not to let me fall in love with you
you can’t make me want to know you

_

Hannah Fantana

http://www.everyday-genius.com/2013/02/hannah-fantana.html

I came here
in my mind
a steady rain
since breakfast
I don’t want
to die but 
the ceiling 
matches the fog
in the skylights

we’re unthinkable 
bombs now numb 
mountains cohabitating
in our crowded kitchen
once we were 
lights in branches
before mountains
our shadows
killing dogs below

a nudist couple
stood nearby
under blue twilight
looking almost alike
both had muscles
lacked the usual scars
shaved similar places
their credit cards
hung from necklaces

today was
strangely long
like mowing grass
through Iowa
or walking a mile
I think that way
about a mile
this mile is 
strangely long

we’re bombing earth 
rocks into orbits 
never imagined
an older technique
making little luxuries
for homesick earthlings
from cities and parents 
who only knew of
stars on television

_

Chad Redden

http://www.everyday-genius.com/2013/02/chad-redden.html

I’m the best man in this chatroom
I’m the worst minstrel dancing for you
I’m the worst friend for sending you bad links
My best rappers are wack to you—
My girlfriend on the edge of this time zone
I can feel you in this zip code and in every zip code
I can sing your telephone number
I want to email you and CC the world

I’m cleaning up the condo
I’ll turn up the air conditioner
I’ll do your math homework
I’ll lay you out on my queen size bed
I’m so rich I will love you for handshakes, for eyelashes
I will love you for nothing 
For love I will love you
Love your thumbnail slideshows
Love your scrolling text messages
Love your mpegs on loop

I’m out in god’s country
Gathering pop tabs on a string, on a great necklace 
To gift to my wife on our wedding night
So she might be proud, and you are
And the sky is your color
And the shampoo smells like your hair—
This is my email to make you love me
At least when drunk and on drugs and asleep and offline
Love me like I love your green fingernails
Love me like I love the cigarettes on your lips and the hairs on your ass
Love me like I love the shoes on your feet
Love me like I love my trailer park queen

_

Marshall Mallicoat

http://www.everyday-genius.com/2013/02/marshall-mallicoat.html

fifty thousand people, shrieking
tear me limb from limb from limb and ship my body parts to different continents
existing everywhere on earth simultaneously
fifty thousand people repeating the word ‘fuck’ over and over
in monotone
seven billion eighty-eight million ninety-three thousand people standing silently
hundreds of sleepless nights trying to remember the names of every sea

_

Kelsea Basye

http://www.everyday-genius.com/2013/02/kelsea-basye.html

cut me in half with a chainsaw (think of the sound of a bone breaking)

when you cut something



you are actually putting something very small

between other very small things

to separate them



put your hand between my hands
_

Keegan Crawford

http://www.everyday-genius.com/2013/02/keegan-crawford.html

Someone made a chicken potpie in the office toaster oven today.
I am smelling the potpie.
A woman who works here is allergic to smells.
If she smells this potpie,
she could probably die.

_

Angela Shier

http://www.everyday-genius.com/2013/02/angela-shier.html