Russel Swensen (@scribblymouse)
Selected Tweets
so no i don’t exactly think there’s hope for any of us ok
ice isn’t melting btw it’s rejecting you
can’t tell if this sunshine is trying to be ironic or what
not a statue i just stay still a lot
what if you “listened to your body” and all it said was “goodbye”
the furniture seems to be a lot more on fire since i started thinking of you
*pregames with bone marrow*
my fantasy is a room you’re not walking out of
writing “who did this to you” as the caption to every childhood photo of yourself you can find
there are a lot of cups of coffee but this one hasn’t betrayed me or made me feel worthless yet
i’m the part of the story you fall asleep during
how old is your depression supposed to be before you talk about girls
i like to drive real slow like my life isn’t meaningless
what’s the yoga position where i lie down in your driveway and promise not to breathe
yelling at my blood that it’s not allowed on the bed
twisted dark fantasies about emotional stability
point a camera at me and watch it detonate
now count back from you miss her but she doesn’t miss you
every five minutes i whisper “it sounds like someone’s dying out there” and even i do not know what I mean
teaching the baby how to say yeezy
have your funeral at a poetry reading so you can blame poor attendance on the genre
put my name in your bio wrap it up in a blanket and weigh it down with rocks drop it off the pier
your heart’s first words were “no touching.”
there is cornbread in my tears tonight
i thought i was in love but it turns out i just left the oven on
gonna take your temperature by burning you at the stake
“i always wanted to fuck the most depressed cheerleader in the world”
“you’re making it worse” me every time i look in a mirror
smh if your entire body isn’t a cast you never figured out how to remove
there’s like one self esteem for every twenty people on twitter and they pass it back and forth
today i wore a canary yellow shirt so that people would know i am completely dead inside
taze me until i cum
tbh every time i look at a baby i can already tell how bad its twitter will be
#girlslikeitwhen you kill their parents trust me this one works
So You Think You Can Cum Without Crying
gonna keep buying diet coke until this vending machine is empty enough to double as a coffin
gonna raise these feelings like they’re my own
lower yr expectations lower them gently into the ground
happily married couple seeks third party to kill them
hey girl are you science friday because you are the only thing i love and it seems like you never come
how many fireflies do you have to kill to cure a depression
i look too good to wake up
IF YOU REALLY LOVED ME I’D BE FUCKING DEAD BY NOW
jealous of all the people whose iphones keep killing them
like you’d notice if the fucking rapture happened
no one who can touch a girl’s collarbone needs to build a dream catcher
people only ever want one thing from me and it is space
Bio: RUSSEL SWENSEN earned his MFA from the California Institute of the Arts and his doctorate from the University of Houston. His fiction and poetry have appeared in Black Clock, Quarterly West, Pank, Third Coast, The Collagist, The Destroyer, and elsewhere. His poetry chapbook, “Santa Ana,” was released by Black Lawrence Press. His full length collection, “The Magic Kingdom,” is forthcoming (January 2016).
Sunday Service
These are great.
Can I buy this chapbook at Trader Joes?