Cover Photo: Illustration by Sirin Thada for Catapult
Illustration by Sirin Thada for Catapult

Poetry and a Truth

Everybody read. I felt it. Poetry and honesty. Poetry and a clarity of feeling. I needed something so badly to be true.

Poetry and a Truth · Tommy Pico 

I ran into Morgan at the Trader Joe’s in Hollywood in the frozen pizza aisle the day before everything shut down. It was only a little bit chaotic because even during panic buying, the Trader Joe’s in Hollywood isn’t even a third as wild as any given New York Trader Joe’s on a regular ass Wednesday afternoon. My cart was full of frozen pizzas. Morgan’s cart was full of flowers and wine. “I don’t know what to get because I don’t know what we’re preparing for, or for how long,” she said. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.

High Maintenance

especially


Tommy “Teebs” Pico is author of the books IRL, Nature Poem, Junk, Feed, and myriad keen tweets including “sittin on the cock of the gay.” Originally from the Viejas Indian reservation of the Kumeyaay nation, he now splits his time between Los Angeles and Brooklyn. He co-curates the reading series Poets with Attitude, co-hosts the podcast Food 4 Thot and Scream, Queen! and is Catapult's poetry editor and a contributing editor at Literary Hub.