Cleaning Out My Notes App — By Sarp Sozdinler

artwork by Brian Padian

after Lacey Cohen

I believe different things in different places

Story on reading your own obituary ahead of time 

[Marijuana] makes my eyebrows go numb

The dark sauce of the night

The climate of meat

I realize I’ve been nodding too much

The girl at the register says I look like a gay walrus

I’m pregnant with families

My girlfriend reminds me of the girl I am cheating on her with

Just because the world is cruel, doesn’t meant mean you can’t believe in something

You can’t look at a burning elephant and say that’s an orange

History isn’t here yet

There’s no good way to deliver bad news, but there are worse ways

Michael Stipe can’t stop losing his religion

Arms are really good to have

Swimming in a pool will not bring you to the ocean

Swimming is easier to learn than walking

It’s easier to love someone when they are gone

I wish she’d understand me less and love me more

My place started to look like her place

She scrolls through ranch style houses on Zillow [in her free time]

Even God might need a house

It was when she remembered that the troubles returned

What is the difference between killing someone and killing yourself?

He learned that the smell of fresh cut grass is actually a distress signal: the grass raising an alarm that an apocalypse was taking place

This is so mean, let’s do it again

Sarp Sozdinler has been published in Electric Literature, Kenyon Review, Shenandoah, Wigleaf, HAD, Hobart, X-R-A-Y, Maudlin House, and Pithead Chapel, among other journals. His work has been selected or nominated for anthologies including the Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions, and Best Microfiction. He edits the literary journal The Bulb Region.