aSoSS 14 | Lover

I have two dogs, one of them’s a rescue. Because my own dog’s name is Daisy, I wanted to name him Gatsby–you know, from the book–

That’s so cute!

Yeah, but he doesn’t respond well to it, so we call him by the shelter name.

Walmart, 2:00PM, 12/12/2023

english has condensed a singularity into the word love, a tricky thorn in the theory that a language is able to encompass our feelings. thus we turn to pictures, worth their weight in words, yet still unsatisfactory. interpretive. a cupped palm, water dripping from the cracks. a crossword clue: what will i see if i look into the dog’s eyes? what will i see if i look into yours?

it is a clash of preshattered wills. he stands over the water, over a circle of light–a broken halo–scrapped from leftover sun. the green light blinks once, twice, and disappears.

He was with a girl. That’s why he pretends not to notice us.

Mosher-Jordan Dining Hall, 10:00AM, 11/25/2023

a burial is hypothetical, until it’s not. the relationships we forge are perfect to the ones that see it. mix up the recipe and it brews disaster, strong and seductive and fragrant. do not lose yourself in the pursuit of others–what if they do not exist? we are nothing but the brains that perceive, you and i. perhaps one day i will run into you, dear reader. perhaps we will part with nothing but a smile.

I don’t have a valentine! Maybe I should hit up my Michigan Marriage Pact…

Central Campus Transit Center, 7:00PM, 2/10/2024

no tax is placed on the mouth–talking pays no toll. rose between your lips, gum bleeding from the thorns… carry your tongue in cheek (yours or otherwise), a novelty, naked and unashamed. golden in the purest sense of the world. momentum carries you forward, up and above, standing on a slice of mountainside, hidden by a reef of red clouds. you will look back, breathless at your own audacity, at the world you created, at the richness of a newly vanished earth.