Poetry. Art. If real power begins where secrecy begins, then, as we frantically search for dick pics of Justin Bieber or our next door neighbour who we're convinced posted the faceless Craigslist ad seeking an asian bottom, we're seduced into a beautiful distraction in which we are convinced, by virtue of our victorious toppling of the lives of others, that we indeed have nothing to hide.

Much of Mucus in My Pineal Gland uses devices recognisable from “confessional” literature: overtly direct affective statements, recollections of early sexual encounters as if they were the keys to understanding the adult author, general propositions about life filtered through the particulars of personal experience. These are wonderful and familiar devices: they facilitate both empathetic identification (“I can relate to that”) and empathetic alienation (“I can’t quite imagine the inside of that experience”).

Published by Capricious, 188 pgs, 15.3 × 21.5 cm, Softcover, 2017, 978-0997444629