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Sick of Being Inside Myself: Poems
This is the new Alexandra Naughton poetry collection. You know her. She’s been publishing critically acclaimed books for over a decade. She wrote one about Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins, and another that loosely referenced Lana Del Rey. Prolific as hell. She had a baby and now lives in Philly. She’s a menace when it comes to karaoke. Her latest literary adventure, this one, deals with geographical longing, sus relationships, pop-culture obsession, strip-mall memories, abstract conversations with people at parties, and just typical Millennial malaise involving small joys hidden within ordinary traumas.
“Alexandra somehow melds lurking on Myspace, watching Godfather Part III with a toxic ex (and then having euphoric recall about it), and objectifying the self into such a perfect bouquet. Shame has never been so fun! Poems [that are] equally punchy as they are tender as they are funny. Like how even a hundred years later a painting can make a bruise on a fruit look beautiful. I enjoyed them a lot!”—EM FRANK, author of Heavenly Days and I Am Trying to Love You
“Alexandra Naughton’s Sick of Being Inside Myself is an ode to feminine apocalypse—an earth-shattering realization that we are always living and dying—where receipts are tokens, TV is church, and poems are for everyone, this collection is a spectacle where the speaker is enamored by what the reader has.”—CARSON JORDAN, author of Good for Her
“What does the self even mean? Alexandra repeatedly asks this question because we all troll ourselves; she’s smart enough to recognize it. The honesty we portray ourselves as flummoxed by the glimmer of the online and mindless media consumption, like the ambience of a family now replaced by the hit of Netflix, of rewatching Dexter and The Sopranos, comfort foods for the mind. Her question of ‘Am I shadow banned or am I just not that interesting?’ hits like a ton of bricks. Even now, that question still hurts, as the online has become the real and the offline the unreal.”—BEACH SLOTH, author of Mark’s My Friend
“Alexandra somehow melds lurking on Myspace, watching Godfather Part III with a toxic ex (and then having euphoric recall about it), and objectifying the self into such a perfect bouquet. Shame has never been so fun! Poems [that are] equally punchy as they are tender as they are funny. Like how even a hundred years later a painting can make a bruise on a fruit look beautiful. I enjoyed them a lot!”—EM FRANK, author of Heavenly Days and I Am Trying to Love You
“Alexandra Naughton’s Sick of Being Inside Myself is an ode to feminine apocalypse—an earth-shattering realization that we are always living and dying—where receipts are tokens, TV is church, and poems are for everyone, this collection is a spectacle where the speaker is enamored by what the reader has.”—CARSON JORDAN, author of Good for Her
“What does the self even mean? Alexandra repeatedly asks this question because we all troll ourselves; she’s smart enough to recognize it. The honesty we portray ourselves as flummoxed by the glimmer of the online and mindless media consumption, like the ambience of a family now replaced by the hit of Netflix, of rewatching Dexter and The Sopranos, comfort foods for the mind. Her question of ‘Am I shadow banned or am I just not that interesting?’ hits like a ton of bricks. Even now, that question still hurts, as the online has become the real and the offline the unreal.”—BEACH SLOTH, author of Mark’s My Friend
122 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 20, 2025
About the author
Alexandra Naughton
27 books60 followersAlexandra Naughton is a writer based in Richmond, California. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of Be About It Press, established in 2010.
She is the author of six poetry collections including You Could Never Objectify Me More Than I've Already Objectified Myself (Punk Hostage Press, 2015), I Will Always Be In Love (Paper Press, 2015), and I Wish You Never Emailed Me (Ghost City Press, 2016). Her first novel, American Mary, was published by Civil Coping Mechanisms in 2016.
Her writing has been widely published on the web and in print, and she performs regularly in the Bay Area and elsewhere.
Find her on instagram, twitter, facebook, patreon
For bookings and other inqueries, please email bookingnaughton@gmail.com.
Naughton's work straddles the line between fiction and non-fiction, prose and poetry, and explores themes such as self-objectification, existentialism, the frailty of text-based communication, and capitalism.
In a review of her first poetic novel, American Mary, on the literary website Heavy Feather Review, Eric Nguyen wrote: “Naughton is clearly more of a conceptual writer, one who at once challenges and entertains. Her characters are reflections of systems—systems of oppression, as well as systems of support. She can be playful and deeply serious and—by the last pages of American Mary, as the book takes on a monologue quality—very powerful. In the end, Naughton does what [other internet writers] could not: be avant-garde not only in form, but politics as well.”
She is the author of six poetry collections including You Could Never Objectify Me More Than I've Already Objectified Myself (Punk Hostage Press, 2015), I Will Always Be In Love (Paper Press, 2015), and I Wish You Never Emailed Me (Ghost City Press, 2016). Her first novel, American Mary, was published by Civil Coping Mechanisms in 2016.
Her writing has been widely published on the web and in print, and she performs regularly in the Bay Area and elsewhere.
Find her on instagram, twitter, facebook, patreon
For bookings and other inqueries, please email bookingnaughton@gmail.com.
Naughton's work straddles the line between fiction and non-fiction, prose and poetry, and explores themes such as self-objectification, existentialism, the frailty of text-based communication, and capitalism.
In a review of her first poetic novel, American Mary, on the literary website Heavy Feather Review, Eric Nguyen wrote: “Naughton is clearly more of a conceptual writer, one who at once challenges and entertains. Her characters are reflections of systems—systems of oppression, as well as systems of support. She can be playful and deeply serious and—by the last pages of American Mary, as the book takes on a monologue quality—very powerful. In the end, Naughton does what [other internet writers] could not: be avant-garde not only in form, but politics as well.”
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 28, 2026
review up on hobart<3
October 12, 2025
SICK OF BEING INSIDE MYSELF is a ballad to the lost in life and love. A way one can overcome these tribulations is to self-reflect—on behalf of their benefit or to others around them—and owning the results as character development. Naughton’s prosaic sarcasm is full of internet lingo, shorthand, startling caesuras, and witty non-sequiturs. A timely, relevant book
September 30, 2025
New and old poems and some short fiction!
October 5, 2025
a quick read, house of vlad has been my go to this year and this one was cool, if I can picture anything I read in my head, it means I like it.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews