Can you hear blue? That feeble cousin of the voice of the sky that lingers around only long enough to be categorized as a color, then fades away into the memory of language that keeps its petals even after the rare winter rain.
Or, the uncertainty of blue, loud and pervasive in its ever-changing silhouette, in its constant near extinction by the sun, the violent beating of a chest when blue becomes blue becomes not blue becomes grey becomes —
I haven’t talked to my father in —
I’ve been lying low to avoid the —
The tide rushes in, immensely, like a carpet that crawls up my feet to —
In the sometimes things happen for a reason we find a reason to doubt the helplessness of others, or to assume it. I wonder if you remember. The questions.
Sometimes the questions accompany us, stronger than any admonition the temptation to rely on written words digs an abyss, fleeting, empty space that stares back at the maw of your waiting. What are you waiting for? Nothing. But it’s just that —
Neither day nor —
The most difficult thing is to —
Every morning we see the same squirrel make its way down the tree, onto the stone ledge, and scramble vertically down below.
Every morning the same squirrel.
Today, the scotoma in my right eye is filled with a white wall. Mostly because it doesn’t want to write. Instead, I want to give into desolation. The desert. Instead, I just want to sleep a little while longer. Flung into sleep. Flung into —
Arms. Your arms. As a word emerges from the shadows and creeps up your chest, swelling curtains filled with night air, who else is really in this room?
Sometimes happiness isn’t conducive to a productive writing practice.
I wonder if I remember.
Her face —
Let’s just say the murmur I’ve been hearing is the question I want to ask you echoed back to me. Because I am afraid. But the fear is taking up too much space and volume. I can see it swelling up as only eternity’s desert can, lying flat, cavernous, open. Considering the placid morning. Birds.
Tonight the words don’t seem to come together the way I want them to. Is it because I’ve had something on my mind for the last few days but haven’t been able to say it out loud?
I try to whisper them imperceptibly while you are sleeping to see if you might absorb my ridiculous thoughts via osmosis.
But you wake up every morning with the same face, still speechless, still —
More than anything I just —
I can’t imagine what tomorrow might look like without you and I can’t stop thinking about our —
When I say that the words don’t come together today, I mean too that they don’t come together around you.
Avoidance.
Or the air that answers the menace of possible responses with more wandering. Avoidance. Or the rootlike slowness of thoughts but the strange speediness of feelings, fickle, like burning paper. Then, just ashes. Just like that.
This seems like a throwaway.
This seems like a distant memory.
An impossible sight.
Some of my favorite views of this city are through my blind spot mirror.
Burning palm trees.
Teetering rooftops.
Clouds.
Holding back the soil, the magnified swallow of sunshine.
Its prestige.
The errant signal of looking. For a moment. A moment too long.
And blue.
One thinks that no one will witness the murder they are about to commit. The truth is, though, the possibility of that violent gesture is what drives one forward. In time. To act. In all aspects of their life. Including the violent ones. And the contributions they might make sitting behind a desk.
Survival is an obscene gesture. An unnecessary one. No one has to live.
Exhalation as privilege.
Fucking privilege.
Oppression as sacredness.
Legibility as devastation.
Staggering legs.
Preparing for autumn. I. am. so. READY.
For autumn.
Then:
the rows of birds perched on streetlamps.
the indigestion after a spicy meal.
the squirrel.
the darkness that settles as you are driving.
the air.
Forget the words. Just forget all the words for a moment. Because all of the words are utterly limitless and limited. I just want to hold your hand. I just want to say good night. I just want to forget how to write for a little bit and remember something I used to do as a child, sunlight pouring in through a window, collecting the suspended dust in the air with my tiny fingers, stretching my arms to feel…
