aSoSS 19 | Spring

That is my biggest pet peeve, dealing with the Sun in my eyes. I can’t do it.

Pierpont Commons, 5:00PM, 2/6/2024

what if the world goes white as it dies? we are taught to fear darkness, undiscernible shapes, figures we cannot recreate. we forget that sight is a blessing, that light is a byproduct of our universal fortune, cast upon by a star too angry to cool, too forgiving to combust. allow yourself to be blinded, like a screen burn-in. the rods and cones permanently fixate on colors that are no longer there. spangles of sun, once streaked with rainbows, now shine mutely. a wavelength of contingencies remain out of sight, but never out of mind.

Ten minutes after I close, I look outside and it’s snowing? Why are people buying ice cream right now??

Couzens Hall, 2:00PM, 3/14/2024

a long time ago i learned to measure the time in increments smaller than seasons. before it was just the summer, a time when i could walk outside and find sweet drops of ice cream dotting the sidewalk. in fall these dots became leaves, and in winter these leaves became snowflakes, which blossomed into sprouts in the spring. there was also a different time of day that the seasons could not measure, an ache that cannot be expressed in words. the sky swirls blue raspberry and the sprouts are strangled by weeds.

i see the clouds fading from vanilla to strawberry to hazelnut to chocolate. tongues do not melt on lips, but i shiver just the same.

You’re ready for cold and it’s warm, you’re ready for warm and it’s cold…

Traverwood Library, 1:30PM, 3/17/2024

the earth does not pause for a second, a marble scarred with the ironies of man. a sorites paradox on the surface: when does the sun give way to cloud, when does the cloud overflow with rain? a single gust of wind, a splash of heat, and the future is completely changed. how can fates be charted beneath a horse’s hoofbeat or a bison’s breath? one or two gives way to band or herd. at a quantum level, the act of observation changes the result–we are simply grains of sand to be brushed away, discarded, glued to the corner of a different piece of the planet.