Rainer Diana Hamilton & Violet Spurlock

Excerpt from This Reasonable Habit

5PM BAR FIGHT

You were saying?

Wait

I’ll have 3 IPAs

Can I join you here?

OK I love that shirt

Did you go to the afternoon panel?

Getting a head start?

Of course. We were just talking
about our “love languages”

She did not

that I’m pissed
about the boycott stuff

Easy. I like presents

E.?

Yes, to my regret.
Today is supposed to be “Pleasures”

I saw her! I heard her.
She was standing outside
the conference room trying to hide
under her coat but her hand was
absolutely down her pants, and she
whispered that’s just how I like it.

Exactly. But no one wants to admit it.

“Oh I prefer acts of service,
I’m such a good person, gifts
mean nothing to me” blah blah

Yes? Do we know each other?

But I found myself eating
the worst muffin in my life
from that company that uses prison
labor to supply indigestible meals
to dining halls while some unfuckable
pedant theorized their last nut

What kind of presents
do you give though? That’s the question for
tops:

What do we want to give to those we love?

They’re for V. and F.
Should I get you one?

You were in American Lit with me
and I want you to know

Let’s brainstorm

I’m taking a night off. Got into this
stupid fight with P. about
of all things “identity politics”
last night, and I’m swearing
off mezcal at least
for the foreseeable future

[evil smile]
I hate Walt Whitman

OK, flowers every day

Right there in the hallway?

Competitive flowers, even

Aramark? At least they make it
so the rich kids in dorms and the inmates
have the same rotten pasta

Letters that are timed
and written so well they either
re-up love or force divorce
by revealing the great divide
in both parties’ moods

I borrowed it from M.
when I woke up
in their hotel this morning

That’s what you want to give?

If they make the NYU undergrads
work for ten cents an hour too
I’ll reconsider the muffin

What was P.’s take?

I want to give desire itself, the promise to
keep finding ways to fuck
no matter how bad health or life gets

I know, it’s so stupid

What the FUCK did you say to me?

Incredible news.
How was the sex?

You know that Gucci Mane song, “Love
Somebody?”

I’m sorry but it’s happy hour, not time
to rehash our worst zoom meetings

Whitman is just another racist faggot

Babe, no, we don’t

Soooo good. But for whatever
reason, and this disturbs me

She was excited to be at a summit
mostly organized, it seems, so far as we know
the organizers, by “people who aren’t
cis men,” and I was like, first of all

When he says “Every time I bought
some shoes, I bought your ass some shoes” I
felt that. I literally want to buy my girlfriend
these Danner boots

I can already guess

I want to hear, though. Things
at Issue Project Room sound bad

[struggling while her friend holds her back]

Right, I was drunk, and I just went in
making fun of this category
that makes trans guys into some
harmless diet men

I want to give my love a place
where everything matters, balanced
between utopian gambits and cozy
boundaries, with irregular fresh
awakenings

And imagines it’s nice to have
any women at all in charge

We have a daily fanciful bakery visit,
generous sex, we rearrange the furniture

I kept calling them mommy

Jesus Christ, E., chill

Wait, that is beautiful

With a name like that

Exactly

You can not hit this woman
in defense of Walt Whitman

A vase made by a shared idol

Lollll. Bro. Were they into it?

Fuck IPR, but yeah, let’s change the subject

They rolled with it, at first, and then
it became clear they started to like it

This bigger tiny world
where we easily reach the stars
with no loss of drama
a meal and a break, from
life or us, whichever’s needed,
in short, a life, at least one,
but maybe a few more too
that go to school or find love abroad

They were like mama needs her baby
on their knees

Fight me if you want to

And they are, what,
fifteen years older than you?

If I love you, I’ll buy you a book
I want to read, a plate I plan to eat from,
knowing my taking is feeding
a delight in being more than one
body, which we share, like the shift dress
we’ll wear so differently

Damn.

A few years younger
than your literal dad at least

So she thought I was calling all this work
she’s done pointless

She hates him because
she’s never known pleasure
in her frigid little life

I hate you

H. I can’t believe you
have it in you to wax lyrical
about your girlfriend even
at this party, I love you

I just don’t want to be associated
with the shrillest, least strategic
crowd of infuriating youth

And weren’t you?

Could you all please shut up

I just can’t imagine being excited
at the sheer fact someone is a woman
stripped from all other context

How did it feel
when they said it back

Is there a problem?

But a woman otherwise stripped ...

Yes, there’s a problem—you care
more about quote unquote strategy
than liberation

We’ll change the subject for real
if you’ll mind your business

[steps backward in feigned protest
and bumps into a man

Incredible, but also
weird. I’m like papa
why do you like this

What the fuck man. Now
your “strategic principles”
make you want to fight like schoolboys?

The more you say it
the hotter it is, actually

Is there some performance art
happening on the other side
of the bar

No, that wasn’t me, I swear,
that chick just tripped
and knocked into you

[Shrieks.] Did he
just pull my hair?

It looks like they’re wrestling

Something is happening

Wait be cool

That’s another thing I want to give
to the one I love: a wrestling match

[throws a punch]

Did I tell you about the time S.
accidentally threw me in the air
and onto the floor when we were
play fighting during sex

omg I’ve never been
in a real fight before

That twink? I’m impressed

Try it out on someone here

oh it’s on

Yes, papa, slap me again

What did you call me
you freak

[rolls happily on the floor]

[kisses his enemy]

[stands on a table
holding a weapon fashioned
out of a broken chair]

This is so fun

[relents]

[barricades the door]

We have the room until 7

let’s see where this

Violet Spurlock and Rainer Diana Hamilton's This Reasonable Habit, out from Spunk Editions fall 2025, is a book-length narrative poem that recounts a long phone call whey they imagine a fictional summit. 

Rainer Diana Hamilton is the author of Lilacs (Krupskaya 2025), God Was Right (Ugly Duckling Presse 2018), The Awful Truth (Golias Books 2017), and Okay, Okay (2012). They write, broadly, about the forms that dreams, art, and love have taken. 

Violet Spurlock is the author of In Lieu of Solutions (2023), which was the recipient of the Other Futures Award. She lives in the Bay Area, where she is currently a PhD student in English at the University of California, Berkeley.