aSoSS 27 | Sidestep

I don’t know where we’re going.

I don’t know either, but that’s why we can figure that out together!

RoosRoast, 1:00PM, 9/7/2024

i can see it in your smile, your hesitation, that your head weighs heavy by the burden of unremembered dreams. do you still dream? it’s a silly question, but your breathing slows. yes. don’t you? somewhere, a siren wails. i resist a glance. i hardly sleep! a deflection, but you don’t press it. both of us are suffering from a deprivation of intimacy, a betrayal of the conscience. i take your hand and we set off together, chained by sentiment, sentenced to walk the earth alone: one of us carrying a burned map, the other a broken compass.

No problem… don’t tell anyone this ended 18 minutes early and we can both get some work done, okay? Alright see you!

Traverwood Library, 1:12PM, 10/9/2024

time should be defined not by length but by density. with each rotation of the hand, a fresh layer of ink is superimposed on the brain–not erased, but written over; there is simply no space to contain our existence. the words form, stack, and topple. you are there but hidden, impossible to uncover. my tears fall alternatingly, like footsteps crushing fresh snow. the things i cry for, are they crying for me?

[grabbing a box of kombucha] you gotta promise me you’ll drink one every morning!

Costco, 4:00PM, 10/15/2024

breathe deep enough and you can feel your belly brush your spine. is your stomach touching your back? the government lacks a measure of hunger, perhaps because it makes fools of all of us: our stomachs, our eyes, our touch. food deserts parch urban jungles. apartments pop up like mushrooms after the rain, grayed and wilted, porous, vacant. you stand up–the sand will swallow us and make soil from our bones–and walk away. the ache inverts my ribcage and gnaws at my tongue.

up above, the vultures wait their turn.