Author: a-spider-on-state-street

Joanne, how do you pronounce your last name?

(-)

[a moment later] Hey, stop talking about me!

Morris Lawrence Building, 2:30PM, 9/7/2024

under the norway pine there are faint notches in the bark, one tally for each secret you have spilled. its twin used to bear the weight of teenage angst, hearts carved so deeply they scarred the cambium. it burned down one night, struck by lightning in front of your house. confidence or coincidence? we were young and nameless; admit it, there is no more value in saving face. buttercup blues–scale a tree, snap a branch, so you can’t leave.

---

How many followers do you have?

One.

See, then the ratio of one to eight hundred following is crazy! Who’s the one anyway?

A random.

Mosher-Jordan Dining Hall, 11:30AM, 9/6/2024

we sentence dynasties of mice to their deaths, eyes strapped to a display, a paralysis of creature and conscience. outside, i am drowning in distractions. i see your mouth and i smell your voice, just out of reach, a parasite in the brain. i turn to the screen and immediately the sensation fades. my screams are reflected in a pleasant digital echo, but it does not matter anymore. above, an observer makes a note– turns to the supervisor–makes a face that betrays a flash of fear. the wheel keeps turning, though none remember why.

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Separate my work from my life, I’m glad that I was the one to answer the phone before my story goes public…

Barnes & Noble, 10:00AM, 11/1/2024

there is a collage of shoe prints at the front door. how long has it been since i visited you? there are boots and canes and infant shoes strewn across the hallway. we embrace like lovers; we discuss the weather like strangers. the heat, am i right? we are two ostriches with our heads buried. quicksand logic: time moves slowly if we reminisce, as if memory moves counterclockwise and we can escape to the treehouse and the campfires and the blanket tents. your ingenuity reflects my innocence. the baby coos and you whisper lullabies in a foreign language–i realize it is foreign to no one but me.

You don’t need to be working when you’re not getting paid. Don’t make a habit of it, because when you leave college, people will take advantage of it.

Central Campus Classroom Building, 10:00AM, 8/25/2024

the lighthouse beckons. why do you listen? you’ve seen the scars: salmon slashes, tally marks against a dungeon. you call them bruises of honor, a spirit lived in pitcher and storm, throat muddy from screaming in the rain. bow, says the wind, and you do, with your knees in the sand and your face in the bowl of your hands. prayer or punishment? stop trying. the lighthouse blinks once, twice, and then winks out.

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Summer reading for engineers? Summer reading??

Mosher-Jordan Dining Hall, 10:30AM, 8/27/2024

the seasons flit past–flecks of paint, a crumbling castle, an anchor in an empty sea. i drag my feet against the asphalt; i find solace all the insufficient ways in the way only a prisoner can. time dilates from within, a scrap the size of a single breath. a flattened lung, once composed of its consumptions, carving out my chest from the inside. i watch, delirious, as my name is etched into a headstone. they will throw my body out into the desert, a skull to be labeled an ancient and nameless king.

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Is he really that short? I mean, he’s short but not short short. I guess five four.

Cancer Center Inbound, 3:00PM, 10/17/2024

we must be accepting of the things we cannot control. like two leaves skating the upward draft, we drive each other dizzy with our tongues (straight and sharp as quartz, a lesson in diffraction–light and feeling, are they really separate?) is it man versus man or me versus you? there’s a difference, even if you don’t admit it. i stare at the mirror, at the figure that plays with my hair and presses falsities into my mouth and avoids my eyes, and i know that no amount of time will turn it into a friend.

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?

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[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.

I liked how our teacher had a coordinated outfit! It was new!

Central Campus Transit Center, 10AM, 8/28/2024

summer comes and the house is not as i remember it. flies cling to the windows like barnacles. i bet a bird died in there, you say as we pass. it must have been heat stroke– but i already knew, i could smell the sweetness in the leaves. trees mourn too, did you know that? everything in the world mourns. the curtains are rustled by an invisible breeze; god’s not watching, there’s nothing to see. what’s buried won’t burn us. the clouds are sharp and shapeless, jigsaw pieces strewn across a coffee-cream sky.

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Fit check, how is it?

Nice, got on that Laufey… I know how to say it now, not loofah or whatever…

Alice Lloyd Hall, 5:00PM, 9/13/2024

it was there the day i left, a dust storm dressed in bronze, waiting for me at the corner of the station. you hid behind a newspaper dated a week into the future: soothsayer’s grin, reaper’s curse. i pretend not to notice but we are both done with pretending. the threat of eye contact forces me astray. someone shouts a name–not yours–and you turn. it wears your eyes and nothing else.

your memory is stagnant, a still pond. i forget your face in the swarm of gathering flies.

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My favorite pants has holes in them, just from wearing it a lot, and I’m going to patch it but I think this might be their last season…

Michigan Union, 12:30PM, 9/24/2024

it’s not there anymore, is it? the things you save until you can’t be saved. markers leak and stain the canvas; stickers dry and cut your nailbeds. you move out and your nails are painted and the world is over, yet the earth continues to spin. the antenna spits static and the radio hums to life. does the flower wait for the bee to approach before it blooms? kill the fantasy. fall in love with the present.

conscience of theseus: if you replace every thought in your mind, are you the same person?

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With another year brings another vibrant campus community! Rain or shine, the human experience perseveres. Whether this is your first introduction to aSoSS or we crossed paths last year, I’m so glad I could be a part of your day =)

Welcome back, stay a while // It’s been a minute and I miss that smile~

Here, sign it.

[Reading card] “Thank you for everything, you’re a great teacher and I’ll miss you.”

Angell Hall, 1:30PM, 4/19/2024

often we spend the ends in a state of regret instead of relief. in the corner of my room lies a box of blank paper: memories that could have been made, people that could have been approached, bucket list checkboxes that were discarded. i still carry the weight of the paper, but there is nothing to look back on. instead i am reminded that i could have picked up a pencil and created a masterpiece. why didn’t i try harder? why didn’t i? why? what grief lies behind a touch-starved heart!

so hug your favorite teachers and keep in touch with your friends. smell the sunshine and taste the earth on the air. plant flowers with your smile and paint meadows on your conscience. make the world a better place, even if only for yourself.

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The end of the year is upon us! Here are a few more collected fragments from the semester that I did not get the chance to use. Enjoy your summer and remember to look and listen for modest wonders–life is too short to walk with your eyes glued to the ground.

Until next time~

If you were a windup toy, you’d be cranked up to the max right now!

Pierpont Commons, 5:30PM, 2/6/2024

I’m good at slogans, in middle school I used to sit in the car and recite all the slogans I heard on the radio…

Target, 10:00PM, 2/16/2024

I think this bus has a jerking problem!

Yeah I think I had it the other day too.

I remember you saying something like that…

Blake Transit Center, 11:00AM, 2/19/2024

She will attend to any name as long as I call her Cookie… she’s so big! I wanted a chihuahua and [points to Doberman] look what they gave me!

Green’s Antiques, 2:00PM, 2/28/2024

That’s the only non-Newtonian fluid I know.

What about Jello?

Pierpont Commons Murfin Outbound, 7:00PM, 3/7/2024

It’s a bread place, and you’re getting noodles?

It’s a bread place, and you’re getting soup?

It has bread in it!

GG Brown Laboratory, 11:30AM, 3/9/2024

Would you rather have super intelligence or lightning speed?

Super intelligence.

So a hundred times smarter than you are right now.

Oh… never mind then. I want the super speed instead!

Central Campus Transit Center, 7:00PM, 3/14/2024

I’m going to the bathroom. If I’m not back in ten minutes, get a plunger!

Duderstadt Library, 7:00PM, 3/21/2024

It’s for kids with cancer, they don’t have hair so they make wigs for them, and I go in and donate my hair.

Yeah, hair is a commodity for those patients.

My hair is valuable too, ‘cause I’m a redhead. Rare hair color.

City Hall, 2:30PM, 4/3/2024

Fish can’t jump.

Salmon?

No one’s keeping salmon in a fish tank!

Traverwood Library, 3:30PM, 4/3/2024