1. Experimentation 2. Neighbor 3. How long does it last 4. Cottage 5. Old growth
i. experimentation
take a scalpel to my veins / with clinical precision / clinical fascination / how deep must i sink to dig it all out / how deep does it rest / lurking / writhing / roots sunk into my heart / lungs / how deep are the gouges left by its claws / step by step hollow the channels / pause and assess / if the vein is gone then will it leave too / if the core is hollow will it wither too
ii. neighbor
The thing that used to live in my veins lives in my home now. It goes to bed beside me, pours itself coffee as I settle at the counter, reads a book while I finish my work. The relief I once harbored, having expelled the writhing mass from my veins, dissipated long ago. Though I expelled the mass it still writhes. It resents me for taking from it its home to build one of my own. So it writhes, and it eats my cereal, and it reminds me again and again and again and again and again that I will never be rid of it.
iii. how long does it last
too long / i’ve already forgotten it / forgiven it / forever / a moment, a moment, a moment
iv. cottage
There are nights where the only way I can sleep is cradled in its limbs, its heaviness draped over me with all the surety of a weighted blanket. These are the nights where the inhabitants of my being give up on tending to me: let the fire burn itself to ash; let cobwebs hang in curtains from the rafters; let fragment after derelict fragment crumble as the rot eats its way out. Let this faltering edifice collapse under its own weight, offering its decaying bones as the last vestiges of safe harbor to an ecosystem that turned its back. To surrender is a familiar comfort, though a small one. To surrender is all I’ve ever known.
v. old growth
tell me a story / there are none to tell / tell me a memory / you know them all / tell me the truth / i don’t make a habit of telling truths / tell me the truth / you would fare better commanding the sky to kneel at your feet / tell me the truth / there was never another outcome there was never a reality prepared for you alone there was only you daring to spread your wings and me clipping the feathers because flight isn’t for people as broken as you whose bones are too brittle to hollow out whose vertigo would knock you out of the sky whose feeble cries would garner you pity in place of the respect you seek you who is too naive to know your own limitations and me who wants only to keep you safe / tell me the truth / there’s no such thing as a happy ending / then tell me a lie / there’s no such thing as a happy ending
Went to my school’s ChemE building to meet up with some classmates to study for our midterm on a Sunday. Did I learn chemistry? Yes. More importantly, I learned that the ChemE building is a liminal space!
I walked all over the building and discovered many narrow, repeating corridors just to find the entrance to the classroom and exit where there was light. The first floor is friendly, while the second shifts into a place I’d expect to be killed in a horror film. There are no windows on the second floor.
my head is swimming with numbers and Greek letters and equation after equation after equation. and still, no matter how many revisions i make, it still won’t work. nothing works anymore.
two-footed lambda stares me down and insists i’m wasting my time. theta (forever my favourite) declares me inadequate, too small to achieve something so big. sigma seems to point in my direction, as if to accuse me of something else. and yet i push on–for something must eventually work, yes?
i am no god, no. i neither claim to be such nor aspire to do so. i am a mortal, and i understand this so, so well. but even in his fall, Icarus was immortalized. i can only hope the world is so kind to me.
Today’s weather will be scattered thunderstorms, with temperatures ranging from 77 degrees farenheit to 64 degrees farenheit throughout the day. Make sure to take the time to step outside and catch some of the rainwater as it falls, or you may find yourself forgetting its face during the next dry spell. The UV index is low, and humidity at a high 94%.
