The Beautiful by Michelle Tea -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

Cover Page Title Page Copyright Dedication Contents I. The Beautiful

The Beautiful McDonald’s August-September Orca X-Girl Sell-Out My Pain The Cruelty of Strangers Unsmoking Biter Please Motorcycle Funeral Escort No Girls Dive Ask Me About My Grandkids Oh God If You Leave a Woman Flowers You’ll Probably Scare Her Away 1/1/94 Letter to a Masochist Suicide Poem When I Love My Father Nanabelly Advice for the Lovelorn Trying to Move the Mystery Muscle How to Reprogram Your Sexuality All These Wounded Women For Zanne For Zanne For Zanne We Could Be Soulmates Three Male Abortion Doctors Dragging the Recycling Out of the Whorehouse Beach Poem I am the Light A Brief Night Out in Tucson Ode to Chelsea And I Still Can’t Drive, Really Just What the World Needs St. Candace of the Incest Daughters Happy

II. Oppress Me Before I Kill Again

My Life in 11 Parts My Mother Getting Divorced Johns Who Don’t Pay are Rapists Dream of an Ex-Girlfriend Kathleen The Enormity of a Beaten Woman’s Blood How I Lost My Poetry Crabs are No Big Deal Peter and Me How I Lived My Life in Tuscon What I Know Bus Story Right Where You Should Be What Happened Dysfunctional Love Poem for Ali

III. Tripping on Labia

The Love for a Mother is a Tough, Tough Love For My Nana Go Kiss Go This Doesn’t Happen Often Hell is a State School This is About Karma Fake Duck/Bad Trip We are Girls I Used to be Straight Trick Poem #2

IV. Heartbreak Cigarettes

My Heart On Learning My Lover was a Whore or It’s All Her Fault That Look Five Reasons Why I May Die of Cancer Emotional Masochism or New Age Message from Beyond? People I’ve Lost Another Day at Work Mr. Buzzle Lovesad Gazpacho Sushi Of Course

V. The City at the End of the World

A Good Thing to Say I’m Getting Really Sick of Writing Poems Like This Percentages Laurie Nature Video The City at the End of the World Impossible The Armageddon Dance Pigeons My Place in the World Last Hope The Biggest Mistake I Made All Year Our Lady of Ridiculous Wishes Nice Try The Big One’s Not Coming What I Mean by American Pickup Trucks Cops Pastry Tragedy

Acknowledgments