aSoSS 06 | Expectations

He’d say something horrendous and then turn and look at me and be like “right?” Um, no??

– Mosher-Jordan Dining Hall, 12/1/2023

humans are strange creatures. with which other species is the support of one is enough to guide the gaze of a hundred? we come up with words and use them to convince others that the words we utter are true. have you ever met a false preacher? don’t let the robe deceive you — as harry frankfurt says, bullshit is not false, but phony. you flop like a fish out of water. are you acting to sell, or are you selling your act?

We can style people’s hair but we have to have neutral hairstyles ourselves.

Exactly, it doesn’t make sense. The times are changing…

In-N-Out, 1:30PM, 12/12/2023

i meet you outside the gates of the airport. for some reason, i was afraid i wouldn’t recognize you. you’d cut your hair, i noticed. i later learn that this was in a time of crisis. why wasn’t i there to support you? i was scared. your face splits my vision, like a crystal of ice in the sunshine. emeralds glisten. i reach out to grab them — your hands, your gemstones — and they are cold, impossibly so. my fingers burn. you melt away and stain the epoxy, streaks of luggage mixed with strands of your hair.

Yeah, I’m a senior this year.

How’s that going?

It’s pretty busy… when I’m not at school or working I hang with my friends a lot… my mental health is basically dependent on being able to see my friends, so I’m not home a lot, I know my mom doesn’t like that…

Hong Kong Gifts, 12:00PM, 12/16/2023

a quiet disconnect from reality. i am four again and watching from waist-height as high school students sip and chatter away. time passes through a polaroid: oblique, grainy, heavily accented. i remember sitting at a cafe and watching a young child stare. i was that student once, just once, before i met you. perhaps i stared my way into your life, just as your eyes stared their way into mine. friends, lovers, students, mothers. i am four again, but this time i look away.