if you go a awp-ing, yo

there should be a song, yo. awping, yawping.

mama will be at awp in chitown. mama would love to drink the whiskeys with you. mama would love to feel the soft down on your knuckles graze her fingers as our hands clasp in what is known as a handshake. yes, mama shakes hands occasionally.  occasionally mama does those live-living things.

mama will be hanging at the Imaginary Friends Press table (416, yo) and also at the Kestrel table...

if you bring mama bourbons she will dance. if you bring mama books she will jump into your arms. if you bring mama snark she will bounce, yo. if you bring mama words, she will make pinatas & candy will fall into your mouths.

yours,
mama

motherfucking sonnet

yo. check it out.

i can never spell deity

& that has nothing to do with you cos

you are no Rama, no Jesus, no Zeus, or

even Gilgamesh. you snore & i snore; you

drool; i drool. we are imperfect things &

so we both look for perfection elsewhere:

you in your Ford Probe turning doughnuts in

pure whiteness & me opening jewelry box

after jewelry box left on my doorstep.

the woodsman never fails me just

like driving gloves coddle your nicotine

fingers. really, there’s no comparison

there. you are spinning in blizzards & i am

picking deer hearts off velvet lining &

always a mirror waits to say something.

mama doesn't know why the sonnet. she doesn't know how the sonnet. she doesn't breathe the sonnet. she doesn't eat the sonnet. she doesn't even drink the sonnet. 

word.

mama

like a child or somethings

mama's also working on her new novel, The hater's winter, & it is so different & so minimal & so alien from Homegirl! it's like mama burned through words with Homegirl! & now she's left with carbon & the carbon's been pressed so tighttighttight each word cuts & each word blooddiamonds.

mama's not bragging; mama's trying to account for her feelings.

mama's been left bleeding, yo.

mama loved the writing of Homegirl! mama was in love. mama thought about Homegirl every day. about what Homegirl was doing & how Homegirl was gonna get out of the shit & how Homegirl & Punkboy were gonna make it & then...

then mama finished writing her novel & it was like she'd just lost her closestest friend.

mama was happy to see Homegirl! go out in the world. mama was happysohappy to get her novel published; don't get mama wrong. mama may be angsty at times but she doesn't just write for herself & when she's feeling angsty she's got the moonshines & the porch & the shotgun & the alabamaz skies...

maybe this is how the parents that are so close to their childrens feel when they leave for college. you can't protect them anymore. you can't think about what they are doing at all times cos they may be doing things you don't approve of like sucking up to teachers and being on time for all their classes & studying on the weekends & attending the churches & protesting puppies or they may be doing things you approve of like smoking the gangas in a cemetery or making friends with that hot guy cos they wanna bone him or skipping class cos they wanna experience a rave or even a Party Barn...

or maybe they wanna do things you've never thought of like sucking the nipples of amphibian-men or getting vaginal tatts or dorm-orgying or becoming a baker or a coppersmith or a rattler-handler or...

mama doesn't know if you've ever felt the same way. mama doesn't know if you've ever finished a book or a project or had a kid & then started another or had another & just didn't feel the same way...

sorry, kid, if your mama don't love you the same.

but, that's how the humans roll. there are different kinds of love. maybe the love mama has for this novel is different but maybe it'll be just as strong.

mama's hoping, yo.

yours,
ryder

mama's working on a top secret

project, yo

& it involves poetry & it is collab & here is a piece (it is not a piece of tail but you could print it out & fuck on it if you wanted to):

is it bad

that i wish on you

an incurable disease that makes

your skin slough off where you have

tattoos. in the shower, on your bed sheets,

on your fixie on the streets of somewhere; your sloughing

skin a streamer behind you a rainbow of sprinkles

like cupcake frosting. you could never get

her name fixed on you then. good-bye punk good bye

love. she’d ask you for

proof & you’d go to the parlor & the needle

would bite your skin again & again & again & then

rainbow streamer sloughedoff streets fixie mother fucker,

yeah you. 

another piece from this super-secret project is finna be published at Unshod Quills, yo. it is called, "Sharks infest these waters & no one believes" & it reminds mama back in the day when she hung out at the home of the beautiful dive bar & they would play Morphine & peeps would sneak down to the basement & do lines of blow off aging strippers & now mama's feeling all warm & nostalgics...