By Kathryn Kulpa

Dear Slug-a-Bed, 

I’m just like you, going to bed with a mouthful of toothpaste. Thinking that’s enough to keep cavities off. The lazy girl’s brush—but I’d spend hours pin-curling my hair, spiraled like little French snails. Two bobby pins, crossed swords. Hours I’ll never get back—but neither will you. Taking pictures of yourself, what you eat. What you wear. Taking pictures of your dog, holding up a treat to make him pose. The dog doesn’t want to pose. The dog doesn’t care what he looks like. Doesn’t care what you look like. The dog wants you to throw the stick. Why don’t you ever just throw the stick? 

P.S. All of the above also applies to MEN. 

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Kathryn Kulpa is a New England-based writer with stories in Ghost Parachute, Milk Candy Review, Monkeybicycle, Pithead Chapel, Smokelong Quarterly, and Wigleaf. Her chapbook Cooking Tips for the Demon-Haunted was a winner of the New Rivers Press Chapbook Contest, and her work has been chosen for Best Microfiction and the Wigleaf longlist. She is senior flash editor at Cleaver magazine.