New American Best Friend Quotes

“One more thing
when they call you a bitch, say thank you. say thank you, very much.”
― Olivia Gatwood, New American Best Friend

“ALTERNATE UNIVERSE IN WHICH I AM UNFAZED BY THE MEN WHO DO NOT LOVE ME when the businessman shoulder checks me in the airport, i do not apologize. instead, i write him an elegy on the back of a receipt and tuck it in his hand as i pass through the first class cabin. like a bee, he will die after stinging me. i am twenty-four and have never cried. once, a boy told me he doesn’t “believe in labels” so i embroidered the word chauvinist on the back of his favorite coat. a boy said he liked my hair the other way so i shaved my head instead of my pussy. while the boy isn’t calling back, i learn carpentry, build a desk, write a book at the desk. i taught myself to cum from counting ceiling tiles. the boy says he prefers blondes and i steam clean his clothes with bleach. the boy says i am not marriage material and i put gravel in his pepper grinder. the boy says period sex is disgusting and i slaughter a goat in his living room. the boy does not ask if he can choke me, so i pretend to die while he’s doing it. my mother says this is not the meaning of unfazed. when the boy says i curse too much to be pretty and i tattoo “cunt” on my inner lip, my mother calls this “being very fazed.” but left over from the other universe are hours and hours of waiting for him to kiss me and here, they are just hours. here, they are a bike ride across long island in june. here, they are a novel read in one sitting. here, they are arguments about god or a full night’s sleep. here, i hand an hour to the woman crying outside of the bar. i leave one on my best friend’s front porch, send my mother two in the mail. i do not slice his tires. i do not burn the photos. i do not write the letter. i do not beg. i do not ask for forgiveness. i do not hold my breath while he finishes. the man tells me he does not love me, and he does not love me. the man tells me who he is, and i listen. i have so much beautiful time.”
― Olivia Gatwood, New American Best Friend

“They will tell you home is safe zone.
No, bitch face is safe zone.
Bitch face is home.
Bitch face is cutting off the ladder,
willing to burn in the apartment,
if it means he can't get in.”
― Olivia Gatwood, New American Best Friend

“It's easy to hurt someone who looks just like you, especially when you hate yourself.”
― Olivia Gatwood, New American Best Friend

“The men re-tighten my bolts just for safe measure.
The men open my car door, Ladies first.
The men are always helping.

One man asks how I reach the pedals.
One man asks where my daddy is.
One man opens his trunk and says,
Bet you’re small enough to fit.”
― Olivia Gatwood, New American Best Friend

“it’s just that i am not afraid of blood which is also part of being a girl. but being the only girl means making yourself lose when you’ve won too much so i bounce the coin off the rim of the shot glass and let johnny slice me open.”
― Olivia Gatwood, New American Best Friend

“ODE TO THE WORD PUSSY I could devote my time to justifying your name by defending the feline. But what about the lioness, I might say, colossal queen of the animal kingdom, or even a house cat, twitching mouse caught in its claws, how could my body not be that? But”
― Olivia Gatwood, New American Best Friend

“blush so pink like learn
what your face is good for
everyone is nauseous

blush so pink like rash, infection
so pink like itch and burn

blush so pink like learn
how to love quieter, circus girl
it’s making us all sick.”
― Olivia Gatwood, New American Best Friend

“I am nine.
We are bored
and Karen is dying.

We drove to Austin
that summer
so Sarah's dad-

who described Karen as
/the great and impossible love/
of his life, who taught us

the word /lymphoma/ and then,
the concept of the prefix,
how it explains where the tumor lives-

could say goodbye.

The house is a rind
spooned out by the onset of death,
what's left in the medicine cabinet

full of razors & we are hungry
& alone & sitting
on the living room floor

where the light
from a naked window
slices the hardwood

like a melon, brandishes
each, individualfuzz
on my scabbed calf

a field of erect, yellow poppies
& we have been alive as girls
long enough to know

to scowl at this reveal
& what better time
than now to practice removal.

Once, I watched my mother
skin a potato in six
perfect strokes

I remember this
as Sarah teaches me
to prop up my leg
on the side of the tub

and runs the blade
along my thing, /See?/
she says, /Isn't that so much better?/

Before we left Albuquerque
her father warned us,
/She will have no hair/

a trait
we have just
begun to admire

except, of course
for the hair he is talking about
we hold against our necks,

that which will get us
compliments
or scouted in a mall,

eventually cut off
by our envious sisters
while we sleep.”
― Olivia Gatwood, New American Best Friend

“when they call you a bitch, say thank you.
say thank you, very much.”
― Olivia Gatwood, New American Best Friend

“One man asks how I reach the pedals. One man asks where my daddy is. One man opens his trunk and says, Bet you’re small enough to fit.”
― Olivia Gatwood, New American Best Friend

“ODE TO THE WOMEN ON LONG ISLAND after”
― Olivia Gatwood, New American Best Friend

“ODE TO MY BITCH FACE you”
― Olivia Gatwood, New American Best Friend

“the boy says he prefers blondes and i steam clean his clothes with bleach. the boy says i am not marriage material and i put gravel in his pepper grinder. the boy says period sex is disgusting and i slaughter a goat in his living room. the boy does not ask if he can choke me, so i pretend to die while he’s doing it.”
― Olivia Gatwood, New American Best Friend

“ODE TO MY PERIOD UNDERWEAR I”
― Olivia Gatwood, New American Best Friend

“I slam down the glass until it cracks up the side and now the game is about who will still drink from it, who will risk shards in the belly, who will cut up their insides for a pack of Newports and it’s not that I even want the cigarettes, it’s just that i am not afraid of blood which is also part of being a girl.”
― Olivia Gatwood, New American Best Friend

“At some point I’ll tell you why I didn’t go to the wake. I guess I never really knew Johnny like that. By that I mean sober or in a church. When I say I didn’t go to the wake I mean I drove by his house every day for two years and the for sale sign never got taken down like the house would always be Johnny’s.”
― Olivia Gatwood, New American Best Friend