Author: a-spider-on-state-street

You’re my last customer of the year!

Mobil, 4:00PM, 12/29/2023

as you cross a border you realize how much you left on the other side. pockets of people remind you of the little things in life. she will come to work next week; what has changed? the antique clock in the back room needs to be physically adjusted — it cannot handle the shift of the season. like dividing by zero, the clock face freezes, unwilling to continue, unable to comprehend. the cuckoo sings to itself. when the sun rises, the truckers line up for their coffee, now one year old.

See, when the restaurant seats two people at a place for four people, during the rush hour, you know they’re going out of business!

California Pizza Kitchen, 1:00PM, 11/24/2023

the cafe shutters its windows and chains the doors. you used to work there, and i used to order the simplest drinks and pretend that they were spectacularly made. now in place of the latte swans lies a stretch of dust, hold the sugar. i like to imagine someone will buy the land and convert it into a forest. one of the workers is allergic to pollen, i remember. stuck in the heart of the city is the best place for her. count the crows on the parkway — they paved paradise, and put up a parking lot…

Coaches are giving too much info. We just need them to figure it out! Two new plays and a whole new group of defenders come out and get the ball…

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

just from the phrase, nothing is revealed. the sport remains elusive; the magnitude remains hidden from view. a new year brings a new list of expectations, but what do you do when the expectations exceed reality? i look you in the eye and tell you not to smile, but your eyes betray you. is it the universe hidden behind your iris, or is it glaucoma? as you blink, a third play — a tear.

the tide crashes against the mountain. the wolverine peeks out from beneath the storm. day has its eyes, night has its ears; up above, the howl of a husky splits the sky into two.

Don’t take more than one cookie, there are a lot of kids that are going to come in!

No, I’m just putting one in here and saving it for later. Don’t worry, my mom taught me better.

Ypsilanti Freight House, 5:00PM, 11/26/2023

when we are young, morality is measured by the wrath of our mothers. does it ever outgrow us? perhaps it takes the form of an instinct. nature is temporary; nurture is permanent. we go out of our way to change our bodies, yet we falter at the hands of the past. a friendship, a lover, a traumatic event — we used to cry, do you remember? now your tear ducts are swollen shut and your makeup masks the bruise.

What about this? [holds up a Hot Wheels toy]

This won’t work. We gotta think of something that he won’t put in his mouth.

Kroger, 5:30PM, 12/14/2023

the world is transformed for two months into a tint of red and green. a holiday is meant to be shared, not enforced, yet the wreaths are strung with purpose. ornaments surge forward, cleaving the branches of a leafy sea. my skin pebbles into cold bumps, like paint dried too quickly. red for fury, green for jealousy… compliments or complements? it’s impressive how there is always something worse to say. how deep you can sink a knife depends on the length of the handle and the angle of the words uttered. soft, slanted, backhanded — wait for christmas day and unwrap what you wish for.

The first time I came here I saw a line outside and I was like “Nope! I’ll come back another day!”

Daiso, 2:00PM, 12/16/2023

how intimate the act of gift giving can be! i am an isocline, a gradient, a slope of feelings. what sits under the tree is a pile of presents, a heap of debts uncollected. happiness cannot be bought, you say, but you swipe your credit card on the gifts anyway. rent your affections by the hour! which is the greater treasure, the present or the company? separate yet intertwined, one must exist in the scope of another. there is no price tag on the pleasure of love: one is measured in dollars, the other in beats per minute.

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.

I’d be stressed about my grade but it’s too much energy to be stressed so I just accept it.

Union Basement, 1:30PM, 12/8/2023

worry is a tranquilizer. it paralyzes you under your covers, on your phone, in your dreams. it seeps into your bones and dulls your tongue. what’s the point? the two hours are going to pass whether you like it or not. the storm does not wait for you to board up your windows. hunker down and persist, or perish. or maybe you won’t. the hurricane will tickle the roof above your head, a gentle brush with the back of a scarred palm. let this be a warning. you will be ready next time, you think — if there is a next time…

It was just the two of us and a bunch of books. In the Hatcher basement! I was like “where are we going? Are you going to murder me?”

Mosher-Jordan Dining Hall, 12:00PM, 11/28/2023

what if we were to soak up information like a sponge? the logarithms of knowledge are beyond comprehension. even with all of hatcher tucked away, what else lies beyond? the madness of multiplicity: in seeking understanding in one subject, you invariably uncover another… these are the consequences of grasping at infinities we will never see. an expanding edge of space. the horizon, and nothing beyond. who could live with this? a murder would be the easy way out. history defeats itself.

I spent a lot of time crying over question 1, so if anything goes wrong… that’s probably where it started.

Panda Express, 1:00PM, 12/8/2023

the symbiotic relationship between the student and the exam should be carefully examined. there is a certain kind of irony in learning everything but the information: the highlighted color (blue), the study location (panera, but only on mondays), the back of your shoe rubbing against a bouncing heel — if anything, is this not a more finely attuned case of studying? perhaps if you committed to watching espn while transcribing notes you would remember the transcriptions and not the fantasy numbers, or the missed flags, or the post-game interviews. yet this fails as well. a strange phenomenon!

if all else fails — in case of emergency — wipe your tears on question 1 and turn to question 2.

This is precipitation but up here you know it will be snow. It consistently does that, do you see the colors?

North Quad Dining Hall, 11:00AM, 11/19/2023

the spirals swirl across the screen. they are always moving, mutating, out of formation like a line of ants trekking down from the 44th degree parallel. what do they call it now? a new version? an update? nothing is as pervasive as the thought of change, even when the seasons changes every year. on the last sunny day people line the streets of the diag and smile wistfully. what a day! a day filled with weak sunshine, a goddess recovering from a cold — or perhaps about to succumb to one.

I see all the pictures of people posting the snow. They are just the out-of-state kids.

Pierpont Commons Basement, 3:00PM, 11/27/2023

in a different world, the sun shines every day of the year. further north it lies behind a wall of rain. the snow is soft, gentle — for now. the snakes lay their eggs; come back in january and fight off their young. when the earth crumbles the children will sleep soundly in their beds. when the sky falls the children will stick their tongues out and press angels into the rubble.

the day after the big game the clouds begin to spit. perhaps the heavens put money on the buckeyes?

It doesn’t matter, I’m always cold! Remember the first time we went fratting? I was freezing!

That was the first week of August!

Yeah, I know. I wore that sweatshirt because it was so cold!

Sigma Chi, 9:00PM, 11/29/2023

the night is a blanket in only the metaphorical sense. the early night is warmer than the early morning, as if the earth were a giant bowl that was heated in a cosmic microwave. clouds and oceans and fractured ozone fractals decorate the outer edges, cooling and warming at whim. the contents are scalding, in more ways than one. you look up the videos of the smooth, perfectly spherical aluminum foil balls. my skin pricks up in danger. one inch ahead, one press of a button, and the world turns black. but for whom?

Father and boy play catch with a football. The sister does a handstand and splits her legs to form a V. Father throws down the field, through the V, into the arms of the boy. Touchdown, Michigan! The mother and the aunt stand off to the side, cheering. Then they return back to conversation. A dog rolls around on the grass at their feet.

Palmer Field, 3:00PM, 11/23/2023

what can a camera do that a dictionary can’t? it paints by neuron, by light and shadow. pictures worth a thousand words elicit no response. speechlessness is an iron fist. an emotion takes over, hot and fervent and bubbling, and it trembles in my fingertips and slides down the back of my spine. this is what it means to live in this pinprick of reality: between pages of characters that build worlds behind the back of your eyes. between photobooks of tyranny, of sunshine, of delicious meals and happy families, of you, and only you.

How good dinner was yesterday! Nobody was on their screens, everybody was having fun playing…

Booksweet, 8:00PM, 11/22/2023

we are bonded beyond eternity to the screens that ru(i)n our lives. i wonder if they will have a place to sit in the future. let the phones eat, crows the mother. the child stacks a row of electronics around a tea party table. they feast on our information and suck the binary marrow out of our bones. airplane mode is on, but there are no more airplanes — they were hunted to extinction years ago. the smoking fuselage, wild with spice and oil and crispy metal skin, sits in the middle of the dinner table. father raises the knife. the world turns black.

This is going to be our last game! We’re graduating! Come here.

Michigan Stadium, 1:00PM, 11/25/2023

the campus hibernates for a week. the bus stations lie empty, perhaps in anticipation or fear. nobody wants to poke the sleeping dragon, wake the transient wolverine. a stadium roused to madness, doused with a frigid, fracturing, fractal wind. it crawls up your skin and burrows with infinitely thin claws. is every culture a mosaic, or is every mosaic a component of culture? will you find the pigskin stained on church windows or raised on the top of flagpoles? of course, the answer is yes.