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Alexandria Hall

my hunger will get back to you as soon as possible


Practice Test for Insatiable Loneliness

1. Absence
    a) makes the heart grow in vines up the latticework.
    b) makes dinner and leaves the dishes.
    c) makes change like the man at the laundromat,
    carefully on the wooden counter.
    d) makes love cruelly.

2. Which of the following does not apply
    a) My hunger is an ugly baby that needs touch.
    b) My hunger has a very big mouth.
    c) If you leave your name and number
    my hunger will get back to you as soon as possible.
    d) No hunger here.

3. To improve mood: practice gratitude.
    I, for one, am grateful for the following beds
    I do not have to make:
    river bed,
    nail bed,
    truck bed,
    hotbed of deceit and suspicion.

4. True or False: Good grief.

5. My ardor is greater than/less than/equal to a barn fire.

6. Untouched, the fire keeps burning.
    Most wounds heal without asking.
    In two to three sentences, explain
    the bright gash of my barn on the night.

7. True or False: If my hunger is mechanical
    then my vacuum bag is a sad sack.

8. Draw a diagram of not looking. Plot
    points A and B where lines come close
    but do not intersect.

9. One man's trash
    a) is out of the office, returning Tuesday.
    b) contains multitudes.
    c) would like to thank you
    for your generous donation.
    d) is eventually revealed to be just trash.


Alexandria Hall is a poet and electronic musician from Vermont. She currently lives in Brooklyn and is an MFA candidate at NYU and Web Editor at Washington Square Review. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Memorious, Narrative, BOAAT, and The Bennington Review, among others.