#pop serial

[apartness]

Eugene Bilbrew | Vintage Sleaze Book Covers | Revel in New York Pinned to Pop Serial by Mike L

[bambimuse]

Not a lot of people are probably going to donate to Stephen Tully Dierks' next Pop Serial Kickstarter now.

Baby Jong-il

[forgottengenres]

Alice says that other people are like the magazines in a dentist’s waiting room.

Ben Brooks, "Alice" - Pop Serial #5

[altlitgossip]

in case you were wondering what to call me

when i was in middle school they called me anus my nickname was anus and they said anus meant ana in english and out of nowhere they would shout anus and i blushed every single time i heard that word because i didn’t know what was going to happen later and i think i started to think that that wasn’t my name but it kind of was because every time they said anus i knew they were talking to me they wouldn’t even say anything after anus no one talked to me they would just scream anus and sometimes when i was sitting in the classroom whatever boy sat behind me would shake my desk and it moved like a low-rider and it moved like the bed that belonged to the girl from the exorcist and it moved like a four year old with a temper tantrum and it moved like honeymooners and it moved like a scared teenager that will never forget and it moved like a flickering light bulb and it moved like elephants on my throat and it moved like macaulay culkin being attacked by bees in “my girl” and it moved like sissy spacek as “carrie” covered in pig blood and it moved like being crucified by “carrie” and it moved like anxiety and it moved in the slowest motion ever and when it stopped someone moaned someone screamed my name again

_ Ana Carrete

from Pop Serial 5 click here to read the original web version

[altlitgossip]

Objective Reality vs Significant Discount on Almond Milk

  While browsing a paper newspaper for what felt like the first time in my life, I found a decent coupon for a brand of almond milk I happen to purchase regularly. I felt so clearly the coupon for almond milk represented my entire reality. It is obvious in retrospect that the coupon represented very little about my reality, other than the fact that I was going to get a good deal on almond milk for once in my life. And perhaps an allusion to the fact that, though I have had a strong desire/curiosity to make my own almond milk, and have heard it is fairly simple and more delicious than store bought almond milk, even organic ones, not to mention much cheaper, even considering the coupon (of fairly substantial value) I have not attempted to do so purely because of the cheesecloth the recipe usually requires, which I do not have and which, though I don’t fully understand the role of cheesecloth in the kitchen (or anywhere (not even sure what I mean by this)), I feel is too big of a luxury for me to purchase. I resist luxury because I have this idea of myself as a very practical person, which is mostly inaccurate but which I hold on to because without it I am left with the idea that I am an impractical person, a word whose meaning implies, to me (incorrectly, I know), inconsistency and recklessness, traits I find attractive in other people but cannot tolerate in myself. This hypocrisy works against me twofold, because while my incessant criticism and control of my own actions is the root of all/most of my suffering, the people I surround myself with (those whose inconsistency and recklessness has likely attracted me to them) are constantly disproving my theory, through success and happiness and relative ease in social situations, that being consistent and careful and practical in all aspects of life will lead to success and happiness and relative ease in social situations, and causing me to further criticize my own behavior, leading ultimately to my own suffering, which seems like kind of a strong word to repeat but this is the life I’ve chosen to live, a life in which I use the word ‘suffering’ repeatedly in reference to something that is probably more accurately described as ‘anxiety’ or ‘vague disquiet’ but embarrassing either way because either way it is implied that I am creating needless drama around my mundane life experiences. It seems kind of like how science keeps inventing new diseases and disorders so people have interesting-sounding terms to explain their totally normal social and personality disorders that they want to brag about while appearing self-effacing, such as, for example, oh I don’t know, whatever causes me to self-inflict dietary restrictions for reasons that only vaguely correspond to reality but that I feel passionate about nonetheless, like the necessity for almond milk, my substitute for soy milk, which was my substitute for whole milk, which was my substitute for chocolate milk, which was my substitute for a bottle of warm Jell-o water, which was my substitute for breast milk, which I’m told I was allergic to.

_ Chelsea Martin

from Pop Serial 5 click here to read the original web version

[altlitgossip]

Nothing Works

When hungry, she fingers her open mouth and moans. I try to think of restaurants.  She snatches up a photograph slotted behind her jewelry box and pulls me to the bed. Her and I look at a picture of a girl and a boy drinking beer on a hill. She says she loved picnics with her brother. She says he brought beer, weed, and a CD player. We look at the photo some more, and then she slots it behind the jewelry box. She fingers her open mouth and moans. I try to think of a place with shrimp.  She slides the shrimp across her lips then teethes it from the fork. I wonder when I’ll see her naked again. She was naked when she said she didn’t want naked to become all we are. She said this on her side. I was staring at the tattoo on her neck. I wanted to lick the tattoo on her neck. She hated the tattoo on her neck and told me several times that the tattoo on her neck was a mistake.  Lately, she’s been cold. I’ve flowered her and fed her shrimp. I’ve emailed poems by Pablo Neruda. I’ve circled her whole body with my fingertips like the internet said. Nothing’s worked.  Now she’s kissing my neck. I touch her here, then there. She’s soft and warm and everything is nice until she begins backhanding tears. I stop touching her and try to cry too. I can’t cry or I can’t pretend to cry.  I turn out the light and put my hand on her shoulder. I feel her twitch and take my hand away. I stare into the dark and listen to her breathing to make sure it’s steady. I sneak downstairs and wake my computer.

_ Timothy Willis Sanders

from Pop Serial 5 click here to read the original web version

[altlitgossip]

Repeat Offender

The middle of this movie  always makes me feel like rewinding it all the way back to the beginning. I don’t want  everything—just for this one dance  not to feel like a backwards-walking  competition. Maybe a taller roof, somewhere  to keep track of the sky and those vanity plates  at the same time. An open relationship  is something one should aspire to  with the moon. It’s thoughts like these that keep me uptight. I only say I’m laughing  when I’m laughing. And I don’t think anyone  should ever let themselves be turned  into the other person, should let  that damp light pass through them, that thing you think you’ve traded disappointment in for  until it arrives. It arrives. I’m not jealous but if I was, I would be jealous of those trees that only get to exist for one ecstatic second  of snow on film. Not some woman. How they live  such a long time but not forever.

_ Lucy Tiven

from Pop Serial 5 click here to read the original web version

[internetlucy]

once, a prev employer cited this poem as an example of my temperament as "employment liability'