Beautiful
smoke stacking into stairs
billowing between the sun and the earth
star-bound and suffocating
with burning in the backs of throats
and tears in the eyes
not from memory or sunken phrases
but from particulates
and particular toxins
that stack so subtly
borrowing blue air
in an innocent display
that isn’t so innocent
the longer you linger
in the space between the sun and the earth
compelled to watch
the world dissolve
your body erode
in the beauty of it all
To remind myself of spring
Out of the world feeling like
It is made of a single room
The lights inside and out
Blurred in the growing fog
And the cold reaching out
Hollow roots burrowing into me
There is
A bouquet of wilted amaryllis
Petals I give to myself while
A new bloom emerges from the
Bulb wrapped in wax wrapped in
Pollen coating the windowsill
And with enough homemade rain
Spread across the weeks
Leaves will keep sprouting
Wrapping round the ceramic faces
That cradle their earth
And reaching for glass-guarded sunlight
That always comes back
Do you think work will say anything?
I don’t think so, I work at Banner Health but I’m in the office, I don’t deal with the patients face-to-face. I imagine they are more relaxed with their policy.
Yeah, if you’re representing a medical firm I’d assume they want you to be more, like, neutral, to cater for the diversity.
Fantastic Sam’s, 1:00PM, 12/12/2023
if diversity asked you to the party, would you have the courage to dance? verna myers would believe. she would seize the moment — you only live once, she might say. and maybe that’s the problem: we split into a fractal, a kaleidoscope of memory, illuminated by the neurons of the strangers we pass everyday. bright, blinking, gone. the moonlight catches the hairs on your cheek. i reach up to brush them away. upon closer examination, it is a scar.
life is short. wear it like a pixie cut, like a quiff, like a bob.
I have this really weird twinge about Instagram about being perfect. Like, on TikTok I don’t care, I’ll post about being silly or something but on Instagram –
Tiktok feels super casual.
– Exactly. I could have no makeup and be talking and I wouldn’t care, but if I did that on Instagram, uh oh, there’s like a mental block for me with the aesthetic, and appearing on other people’s feed, you know?
Denver International Airport, 12:00PM, 1/8/2024
consider a future modern art exhibition. large indium screens are plastered across six-by-eight feet windows. it is a prison, a jail cell, a red-blood among a sea of great-whites. my sense of smell strikes like a lightning bolt. the cloud erupts, quivers, begins to cry. why are you imprisoned? the door is open. all you have to do is fall. pull the plug. short pleasure, long repentance.
Sometimes I feel like I’m stuck in a hotel with a thousand other people that I don’t know.
Yeah, especially like the numbers on the door?
Mosher-Jordan Dining Hall, 6:30PM, 1/11/2024
stop me if you’ve heard this one before: an infinite number of guests walk into a hotel… where do they go? up the stairs, through the halls, n-plus-one steps more. the days blend together. who am i? you look to your right and i stare back at you. we are one and the same. i reach out at the same time as you, like a mirror, except our fingers touch. the shadow of the mind sends reality staggering. the doors slam shut. outside, the sun sets once more. spend another day with me?
Friday on State
images of old America
glitter in Hollywood
rock bands roiling
and German beer (not so German anymore)
with patriotism and Ann Arbor trees
bright green walls, newly renovated
plants at the window (could be fake)
boba and straw in hesitant hands
your friend tells you it isn’t very good
but insists you drink it anyway
and anyway isn’t so bad, right?
Daija just died yesterday
Danielle can’t see her face in all the paint
My mother and I don’t know what to say
Each day it’s harder to wake
While Tabs, papers, and links fill my desk
The sun is the only one who fills me in the warring
Generations of expectations and no money to shop
With your tasks there is no time for mourning
All I want is to water my plants now
When scrolling I know I would rather my pain
In all that I’ve heard I just don’t know how
To live knowing some are worth just a word
The sky turns grey but there is no change
Answers may come with age
I shed my many skins to get to me
The sky is made of crows returning to warmth
The horizon like rainbow sherbet back home
Metal and glass holding puzzles of bone
Jutting across the landscape like mountains
I bounce along to the static singing in my ears
Music is deep water, and I’d like to sink beneath the waves
Cheers and laughter and dancing rushing around you
Rockets carve twin-tailed clouds across the atmosphere
Lamplight tells you the stars will be here soon
And the cold will sit alongside you
As the sun sinks behind the earth
