Wednesday, December 31, 2025
Tuesday, December 30, 2025
Monday, December 29, 2025
Sunday, December 28, 2025
Saturday, December 27, 2025
Friday, December 26, 2025
Thursday, December 25, 2025
Wednesday, December 24, 2025
Tuesday, December 23, 2025
Monday, December 22, 2025
Sunday, December 21, 2025
Saturday, December 20, 2025
an actual tweet without commas because commas are bullshit
You don't need to tell me about the value of books real books physical books that you can sniff and lick and throw across the room. You are preaching to the damn choir here. I've been collecting books since before I could read them. I've written a few books. Buy them.
Friday, December 19, 2025
Generous Review of Super Cherry Extra
Muchas gracias (I'm a gringa who is often asked in YouTube comments why I speak Spanish...my succinct reply: IT'S PRETTIER THAN ENGLISH!!! FUCK OFF!!!) to Pella and Michele. I am not worthy. Also, I let the Costco membership lapse so now I have to make the trek to Trader Joe's for my alkaline water. Oh, and allow me to clarify: I am not saying axe murderers are better than MFA poets. I am saying axe murderers are better than writers, period, because they only kill you once.
Happy holidays, motherfuckers. Try not to kill anyone with your words or with an axe or a chainsaw or gun or knife or car or anything else. Kill your precious gods instead.
Thursday, December 18, 2025
Wednesday, December 17, 2025
Tuesday, December 16, 2025
What Do CHEAP People Bring To A Barbecue?
I hang out at X on a regular fuck ass basis because I'm cool like that I'm Chupacabra Disco like that I'm clueless like that I'm claustrophobic like that I'm chocolate chip cookie dough like that I'm CHEAP like that. I sold my car in 2020 and said I would never drive in San Antonio again. I still dream of someday buying a brand-new beige Dodge RAM pick-up truck with cash but only when I own my dream house and a few acres of land and I need to drive into the city once a month for supplies (toilet paper, lemons, sourdough bread, cherries, bananas, Chef Boyardee pizza, alkaline water, batteries, eTceTeRa).
So I go to X as I am wont to do and some random person or bot posts the leading question. What Do CHEAP People Bring To A Barbecue? I do not engage. I take it as a writing prompt. Here we are. As long as we think like this we are doomed. Are you cheap (SOLO cups, condiments from Wendy's/Panda Express/Burger King) or are you CLASSY (alkaline water from Costco, Grey Poupon, glasses from Dollar Tree). This kind of thinking divides us as a nation. "Oh, I would never in a million years fuck with that Faded Glory mommy jeans Equate body wash bitch with her Fantastic Sam's hair and press-on xmas tree fingernails." I walked into Old Navy the other day then walked out because I couldn't find any black shirts. "Okay, Johnny Cash," my husband said. My latest thing is collecting black shirts. I have several black shirts and sweaters from the website that owns the fucking planet. I want more. I want a closet bulging with black shirts and sweaters. This seems important. I also walked into the big girl store. Torrid. I thought maybe I'd find a black shirt on clearance. Yes, I found a cool-ish black shirt on clearance but it was size 5X and it was on sale for $71. Um. No ma'am.
I confess. I was starstruck when I entered the world of the upper class at the age of ten when my mom married my stepdad, an Aggie. The first time I ate dinner at his parents' house in Abilene, Texas I felt like I had died and gone to some kind of white person heaven. We sat at this long table. There were breakable plates and glasses and there was some kind of order to the gleaming silver knives, forks and spoons. The baked chicken with white rice might as well have been caviar. I had only ever eaten chicken with my hands. Fried chicken from Popeye's, mostly. And what was UP with these articulate, witty adults drinking cocktails with dinner? Que??? Ice clinking in the glass. Amber liquid. Scotch, maybe. The patriarch, my stepdad's father, was a cocktail swigging cigar chomping son of a gun who owned some kind of automobile dealership. After dinner he played the player piano and we all stood around singing such songs as "The Aggie War Hymn"
and "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose its Flavor."
There was European art on the walls with those little lamps shining over them to really illuminate the swirls of paint and there were bookshelves filled with honest to fucking god hardcover books, not the true crime and Western pulp paperbacks that I'd found in my maternal grandparents' house. You're familiar with Hummel figurines? Yeah. Lots of those little fuckers. I was dazzled.
I come from working class small town Texans. I was the first person to attend college in my family. My sister was the first person to graduate from college. To my parents' credit, one of my fondest memories is of them giving me a box filled with Little Golden Books. I always had books, even when I couldn't read. They would take me to the Ben Franklin store (the five and dime) and I would make a beeline for the books even when I was a toddler. Is it my Virgo ascendant? In Vedic astrology I have a Leo ascendant. No comprende. It took me years to grasp Western astrology (tropical) and now I'm learning that Vedic (sidereal) is more accurate. Last night I dreamed of a Sagittarius guy I had a crush on years ago. He was teaching me about taxes. I wish I'd written down what he said.
So. Cheap versus classy. A cheap person brings their sweaty funky body to the barbecue and says, "Deal with it. Where's the potato salad? Where's the beer?" A classy person brings the unsweet tea and ecologically superior paper towels and their immaculate presence. You'll feel your vibration rising just by seeing them from two feet away. O holy one. Can I wipe the sweat from your forehead? Paper or plastic? Buddha or Jesus? Radiohead or Coldplay?
I am not worthy.
perfect look to rock the morning after
You know that feeling when it's Saturday in San Francisco or someplace similar and you're waking up next to a stranger who might possibly be a soulmate. You may have hooked up in a more interesting lifetime. He was a Christian soldier, you were a pagan whore. Something like that. You definitely hooked up in this lifetime. The cum is crusty on the burgundy sheet that reeks of his AXE Aqua Bergamot body spray. But you look into his giddy hazel eyes and you feel tender. No regrets. You toss him your favorite shirt, tell him he's welcome to luxuriate in your shower while you whip up the perfect breakfast sandwich (toasted sourdough slices slathered with a condiment you invented...plain nonfat Greek yogurt mixed with basic bitch French's yellow mustard PLUS a fried egg PLUS a salted and peppered organic from the vine tomato cut into thin slices PLUS Grinch salt...fucking swooncaKe!!!) and remind him that he's on tonight for another round at El Chupacabra Disco. God in that moment might actually eXiST.
Monday, December 15, 2025
Sunday, December 14, 2025
Saturday, December 13, 2025
Friday, December 12, 2025
Thursday, December 11, 2025
Wednesday, December 10, 2025
Tuesday, December 9, 2025
Monday, December 8, 2025
Saturday, December 6, 2025
Friday, December 5, 2025
Tuesday, December 2, 2025
YOU WILL NOT FIND THIS AT FAMILY DOLLAR
I found an ancient photograph of a collage I created in 2010.
I fucked with it.
Here is the result.
Monday, December 1, 2025
Sunday, November 30, 2025
Saturday, November 29, 2025
Friday, November 28, 2025
BLACK FRIDAY DIARY
My husband is blasting his favorite kind of music from his room. Sounds like KISS. It's really lusty and emphatic. We're both Gen X but he was born in 1965 and I was born in 1973. There is a difference. He started laughing when I played this song for him. Not his jam. It is my latest favorite song. I'm so obsessed I looked up Cameron Winter's natal chart. Yes. He is in fact a Pisces with a Scorpio moon. I don't love that Geese will be playing Coachella next year with the usual suspects but such is the nature of the beast. There's a lot of shit to this world but sometimes you will find glints of gold. Cherish those.
I've been going down the newsletter rabbit hole. Fuck it. All this noise gets in the way of actual writing. I don't have time to figure out a goddamn template and then invite people to subscribe. I'm not on Facebook or Instagram. Thus. I do not exist. I have eight subscribers at X. I pretty much live at YouTube. Someone, something...God, Jesus, Santa Muerte, Joan of Arc, Lester Bangs, my late Sagittarius grandfather...keeps suggesting that I write. I was writing again but now I've lost the spiral notebook. I have stacks of books and magazines and tarot cards and crystals and clothes and makeup and wigs and records. But where is the spiral notebook that will become my next nonlinear novel? I need a year or at least a month alone in a cabin. But here in this house there is a xmas tree and cornbread I made from scratch and dishes always laundry always and love comments and hate comments on my tarot videos and goddamn a bitch gets tired and just wants to disappear.
I still don't know how to play guitar but I keep playing, anyway. I really loathe the smell of palo santo. Maybe I'll simmer some cinnamon on the stove.
Thursday, November 27, 2025
Wednesday, November 26, 2025
Tuesday, November 25, 2025
Monday, November 24, 2025
Saturday, November 22, 2025
Thursday, November 20, 2025
not a haiku but close enough #X #TWEET #fucKcoMMaS
He's a tacky overgrown toddler
with a shitty diaper
throwing a tantrum in Family Dollar.
$TRUMP
Wednesday, November 19, 2025
Tuesday, November 18, 2025
Monday, November 17, 2025
Friday, November 14, 2025
Thursday, November 13, 2025
Wednesday, November 12, 2025
Tuesday, November 11, 2025
Wednesday, November 5, 2025
Monday, November 3, 2025
Sunday, November 2, 2025
Saturday, November 1, 2025
HOLIEST DAY
November 1st of any year is the holiest day because I say it is. Selah.
"You're going to reap just what you sow."
Huginn has been telling me to write for a few years now.
I've been telling Huginn to fuck all the way off.
"Huginn. Writing doesn't put the delicious tacos on my plate."
That's what it's about on this planet. Putting delicious tacos on your plate. We all know this. But tacos or no tacos, I have to write. It is in my blood. Sangre. Writing is in my sangre. I don't know where this fire came from. It didn't come from my Taurus dad. It didn't come from my Gemini mom. We are a little bit our parents. We are a little bit our environment. But we are much more than that. I look to Western astrology for clues. I have Mercury in Pisces in the seventh (house of Libra) square Saturn in Gemini in the tenth (house of Capricorn). Tight. Mercury, my chart ruler, opposes my first house Virgo moon. I have to write.
Today I woke up and scribbled in my spiral notebook. I recorded my ramble and uploaded it to Patreon for my top two tiers. The ramble was regarding Saturn in Aries. The last time Saturn was in Aries was 1996-1998. Aries is my eighth house, the house of Scorpio. I died in 1996. I died in 1997. I died in 1998. I died in 1999. I'm not talking about a near death experience. I'm talking about pain. I'm talking about hurting so bad you wish for death. In January 1999 I turned off all the lights in the house in Greenwood Forest (off Junction Highway, in between Kerrville and Ingram, Texas) and played Billie Holiday in the dark. I drank cheap blush wine from the bottle. I drank vodka from the bottle. I swallowed a few allergy pills. I screamed at God. He was deaf. He was mute. There was no response. I looked for my Virgo stepdad's pistol. Couldn't find it.
I'm here. I'm in pieces. I'm whole. I'm fragmented. I'm a mess. I'm intact. I'm energetic as hell. I thrum. I myself am hell. I am deliberate and afraid of nothing.
I see a culling process. I see a harvest. Saturn moves into Aries in February 2026. Boots on the fucking ground. Die or be killed. That will make sense if you think really hard, harder than you are used to. People are lazy and entitled and looking outside themselves for all the clues and answers. Watch a YouTube tutorial. Consult the stars. Consult the cards. Shake the Magic 8 Ball. Better not tell you now. But you will come to a place where the only thing you feel are loaded guns in your face and you'll have to deal with pressure.
Friday, October 31, 2025
Thursday, October 30, 2025
Wednesday, October 29, 2025
When Good Writing isn't ENOUGH
I just deleted an email with that phrase.
Good writing is never enough.
If good writing were enough I'd be living in my dream mansion in Todos Santos right now.
Swimming naked in my pool with purple lights.
Sleeping in my immaculate cloud bed.
Waking up to green tea on the patio.
You have to know Elizabeth Gilbert and Oprah and Drew Barrymore.
Do you have a podcast? Bueno.
Do you have a table at AWP? Cool.
Is your daddy a professor at Berkeley?
Girl. You are on FIRE.
Tuesday, October 28, 2025
Friday, October 24, 2025
Thursday, October 23, 2025
Wednesday, October 22, 2025
Tuesday, October 21, 2025
Sunday, October 19, 2025
BUY SUPER CHERRY EXTRA
It's about damn time. My latest and possibly last poetry collection is now available at Amazon. I have several copies you can purchase directly from me. I'll be selling this book and the debut cassette with the same title in Toledo, Ohio next month.
Friday, October 17, 2025
Thursday, October 16, 2025
Wednesday, October 15, 2025
Tuesday, October 14, 2025
Monday, October 13, 2025
Sunday, October 12, 2025
Saturday, October 11, 2025
Friday, October 10, 2025
Thursday, October 9, 2025
Wednesday, October 8, 2025
Tuesday, October 7, 2025
Monday, October 6, 2025
Sunday, October 5, 2025
Saturday, October 4, 2025
Friday, October 3, 2025
Thursday, October 2, 2025
Wednesday, October 1, 2025
Misti Velvet Rainwater-Lites in A Thousand Syllables or LESS
I don't salute any flag on this planet.
I don't think owning a gun collection makes you a bad ass.
I don't think owning a bunch of books makes you an intellectual.
I don't think praying to Jesus makes you a Christian.
I don't think disavowing tarot makes you morally superior.
I don't think rejecting magical thinking makes you smart.
I don't think crystals make you spiritually superior.
I don't think burning incense makes you a witch.
I don't think writing poetry makes you especially interesting.
There are a lot of bad poems.
There are a lot of bad people.
There's a lot of unnecessary posturing and blabbering.
No one is holy.
I'm not Drew Barrymore.
I don't get down on my knees for any motherfucker.
Pedestals are stupid.
There are no heroes.
There are no more lovers left alive.
I grabbed that from the Pet Shop Boys.
I haven't had sex since November 2016.
It isn't your fault.
I'm not an embittered crone.
I'm a witch like Yoko Ono but not as rich and not as sexy.
I will never have sex again.
Carve it in stone.
I will never fall in love again.
Carve it in stone and paint it black.
This is not a poem.
This is a Ted Talk.
I have a few first editions.
I have more than a few crystals.
I have rings and bracelets and too many t-shirts.
I have a pair of fuck me heels on top of a bookcase.
I don't wear heels.
I don't close down the karaoke bar.
I don't want anyone's tongue in my mouth but mine.
I'm feeling Johnny Rotten circa "No Feelings."
I've got the same little britches to get glad in.
I've blocked my mom and her mom from my iPhone.
I love the idea of Vegas becoming a wasteland.
I'll return to Vegas when there are no trust fund brats left.
I'm giddy inhaling the smoke of every bridge I've burned.
You are not the boss of me.
I'm the King of Dirk.
Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Monday, September 29, 2025
Friday, September 26, 2025
Thursday, September 25, 2025
BLURB
Misti Rainwater-Lites knows everything, and it's all in her newest book Super Cherry Extra, 70+ West Texas punk vibe pages tumbling out in melodic cliches, kaleidoscopic cultural images from the delightful first poem to the last. She's in charge of every line from the get go, and you can't wait to see where she's going, somewhat like a movie. In Mundo Muerte, "The world ends tomorrow. Ready set GO. Smoke fills every room. The fire is sponsored by PRADA. 'None of this is real,' says Madonna." The energy of each poem is explosive, and yet so subtle you will read them with your heart in your throat. And don't read the last revealing poems first. Save them. You need this book for its fabulous brilliance!
~Susan Ward Mickelberry, author of And Blackberries Grew Wild
Tuesday, September 23, 2025
Monday, September 22, 2025
Sunday, September 21, 2025
Saturday, September 20, 2025
Friday, September 19, 2025
Thursday, September 18, 2025
Tuesday, September 16, 2025
Monday, September 15, 2025
Saturday, September 13, 2025
Friday, September 12, 2025
Thursday, September 11, 2025
Wednesday, September 10, 2025
Tuesday, September 9, 2025
Monday, September 8, 2025
Sunday, September 7, 2025
Saturday, September 6, 2025
Friday, September 5, 2025
Thursday, September 4, 2025
Wednesday, September 3, 2025
Tuesday, September 2, 2025
Monday, September 1, 2025
Sunday, August 31, 2025
Friday, August 29, 2025
another blurb for Super Cherry Extra
"Misti Rainwater-Lites has a pink guitar that never seems to be in tune and she’s right. That really doesn’t matter, because her poetry rings, screams, and sings with real human honesty that’s more refreshing than any celebrity cucumber water could ever be. Her new book Super Cherry Extra is the antidote for those of us sick of the fake, soulless, plastic pop culture that inundates the hours we're awake and half of the ones we’re sleeping, too. It is relentlessly and recklessly authentic and written so well that the hard truth is easy to swallow. If you’re looking for proof that the punk spirit still lives, you’ve found it."
—Dan Denton, author of The Dead and The Desperate and others
