Pico - Feed

Norton & Company Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data TK Names: Pico, Tommy, author. Title: Feed / Tommy Pico. Description: First U.S. edition. | Portland, OR : Tin House Books, 2019. Identifiers: LCCN 2019013806| ISBN 9781947793576 (paperback) | ISBN 9781947793583 (ebook) Classification: LCC PS3616.I288 F44 2019 | DDC 811/.6dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019013806 First U.S.

Edition 2019 Cover Art Cat Glennon Cover Design: Cat Glennon & Jakob Vala Interior design by Jakob Vala www.tinhouse.com Me n Leo yakkity yak yakd about writers block and the starchy long stroke of quote unquote God on the Meadow Walk and he didnt know I was fully head over banana peels I mean in Kiehls I mean in straight up crappy love with him yet and maybe I didnt either? Sand crabs poking their bodies & legs post wave Hindsight is Good & Plenty I mean 20/20 clearly the worst American candy And what is candy, but a crush? Leo said its tangled up in waves in dreams in therapy That writers block (or is it god?) comes from being blocked up in other parts of the days of our lives of our lives of our lives This is a polysaccharide Effective deflection Rejection heavy, that hed forgotten what the feeling of a good idea is But Im standing right in front of you? I thought bubbled but never troubled the air with my utterance Instead I said, this is the part where you ask me for my number because I was committed to being my own damn romantic comedy that year Our sublime times The Don Julio margarita mix of our situationship These are the Doppler blips that ripple resurface when Leo surfaces among the Chelsea Thicket Optimal frustration from the Odysseus years Golden Fleece of
intimacy for the first time in like what 6 months? A year? Two years? Seven years? Has it been SEVEN years? 1492? It was literally 69 billion years BC Dear reader, White as a bell you whisk me to a fever like the ruby cinnamonHey! Lets make a vinaigrette Did you know molasses emulsifies the olive oil and keeps the little fat molecules from stumbling into each other, thus allowing the oil and vinegar to mix? A sauce is broken when the oil separates like a heart Sometimes this is inevitable, no matter how hard you shake the mason jar A bumble bees tiny hairs curl THE EPAS PLAN TO CENSOR CLIMATE CHANGE DATA in the electric field of a flower and the seasons and the fields sway their harvest like a rolling sea The city cabin-fevered in the wake of winter, Sherlock & looking glass
(its a gas, gas, gas)d for an excuse to wear an eyebrow lift of shorts again I dont know what this flower is called but in the breeze it looks like a butterfly on a string The dependably wild
inconsistencies of spring Now the city keeps a sweater in its backpackBalance is not unlike how rice and beans shouted You complete me! in the crowded train station millions of years ago. Dice the leeks. Snap off the inedible ends of the asparagus Salt/salt/salt until you can angel in it Wilkes: How do you feel? She swipes a curl from her face, blows out a swirl of smoke and bangs
ashes into my baby cactus Me: Like someone put a sleeve of dry pasta up a mouses urethra? She didnt ash into my baby cactus. I just like the way that sounds. Were on her fire escape overlooking the belly garden of all Brooklyn apartment buildings. The day was in the low 60s but were in the high weeds.

She ashes between the irons. Her landlord is back there, pulling plants and sucking her teeth. Wilkes: ASH HAPPENS! she shouts down. The landlord shakes her head, says something low and out of range. Wilkes: I mean about seeing Leo again Me: Everyone is talking about the Fermi Paradox right now, you know what that is? She hands me the spliff. I hold it eye level, staring at the ember raveling the white paper black and grey before crumbling away Wilkes: Of course ! I wrote the book on Farm Socks! She rolls her eyes and lifts her palms up.

Me: Its like, against the infinity of space and all those stars and all those worlds out there, the probability of extraterrestrial civilizations other than us is extremely high. But where are they? Even if interstellar travel is really slow, our sun is relatively young compared to the age of the universe as a whole. Theyd have had millions of years to get here. Wilkes: I think its paternalistic to assume wed be demonstrably visited in our lifetimes. History basically just started recording itself. youre not gonna smoke that? Pass, plz Nations are always outlived by their cities Dear reader, We are in a pot. youre not gonna smoke that? Pass, plz Nations are always outlived by their cities Dear reader, We are in a pot.

One of us is the vegetables and one of us is the water. I cant tell who is cooking who, like a late 80s Aretha Franklin songwe give ourselves up to each other. Into each other. Throughout each other. I THINK whoops I think that exchange is what Beyonc bards about in XO, her love song to the crowd Track 1: XO by Beyonc. The part where she looks out into the crowd and assures them, they are what she needs.

That she gives them everything. It doesnt deny finality. Love, then lights out. It simply identifies the grain of performance is her feed. Im going to keep this short and sweet bc I am tall and BITTER : Theres a kind of stability Theres a kind of stability Theres a kind of stability being so thoroughly Teebs I mean seen A sly calm, indulging the part of you that stays when the rest hides or hurricanes away onstage. Another tug of skin on my skin, firming everything in place Dr.

John says anxiety of the return is necessary. Conclusion must come for a new story to take place Track 2: We Need a Resolution by Aaliyah. The part where you reach the critical juncture of whether the relationship can be salvaged. Do I change? Do you change? Do we go on the same? Hurt is inescapable here. This resolve dissolves the doubt: We need to talk it out. Evasion writ large: The reason why we dont have the conversation is because were afraid we already know the answer.

Dear reader, Ive been thinking about fuel sources that produce the heat of the fire that burns inside you and the term resistive circuit and active networks and mainly about Kirchhoffs current law, that the sum of all currents entering a node is equal to the sum of all currents leaving the node by which I mean its pollen season again and its got my circuitry inconsolable and the City stopped texting me back which, wtf Ive never been ghosted on by a whole City Its very men TFW you want the City to know you hate it, but also like it doesnt even occur to you to think about the CityWait who are you? Ooh yeah, yr whatever anyway Im having the Baja fish tacos you shd go to shell Sorry I mean have the macaroni I hear its Wait a minute who are you again? Im talking to the freaking reader can you give me a minute jfc Ive been thinking a lot about stretch denim that doesnt also have a stretchy waistband (by which I mean natures cruelest disagreements) and Ive been thinking about the slobbering of heat that is the promise of spring. In her book An Everlasting Meal Tamar Adler, waxing poetic on boiling cauliflower, writes, Heat is a vital broker between separate things. In the insanely popular early 90s alternative rock banger Linger, Dolores ORiordan sings, If you if you could return: dont let it burn. Dont let it fade. Today, to wear out the woozy, to giddy the skittish dizzy into a steady