winter citrus
they say that every time you call on a memory it grows a little stronger, and a little less accurate.
what are we going to tell our children about these days? about our institutions crumbling and the jokes we made online. about the air that escaped the arctic and the embers that burned your hometown. about watching illegal fireworks in the sky on the last independence day. about the sunburns and the nosebleeds and the album releases and watching twenty year old seasons of survivor and the spiked seltzers that tasted like subway air. the point of art is to wound, right?
the point of my art is to ask questions. i have five hundred dollars worth of beads in an online cart and isn’t that such a funny concept? an amalgam of things that could belong to you. am i mine? are you?
i’m going to to meet my dad to pay a shiva visit for the first cousin of his generation to pass away. there is no one from my grandparents generation left. there will come a day when i am older than any single professional athlete and a day when i no longer breathe on this earth and one of these scares me more than the other. the word crumble implies that there are distinct chunks that break off gradually. it is dry and weighty. i stepped on a scale last night and saw a number i’ve never seen before and i don’t know how to feel about it so i’m going to put it away.
they say that every time you call on a memory it grows a little stronger, and a little less accurate.
i’m practicing “that’s for you.” i’m practicing “not my circus, not my monkeys.” i saw a meme that said that “not my circus not my monkeys implies the existence of a circus that is yours, possibly even replete with monkeys” and i laughed until i cried.
you think i write prose poems and i think you’re probably right. i like the way i look in your eyes.
there is something within me that is raw and fragile and i hate it, thanks. i weave words around my wounds. gauze implies something sheer and coarse and tough. i’m a little disorganized and rough around the edges. do my friends know i was a latch key kid? is it obvious? i can’t imagine a world where people don’t lock their doors.
my ex has a new girlfriend who looks like me if i didn’t dye my hair. i’m happy for him, genuinely and apathetically. i’m thinking of selling my peloton. three years is a long time to spin in place. i never used to get carsick but now it happens all the time.
i like to ask how many is many. how many is several. is a couple two? if my grandpa was still alive would he have a substack? i want my writing to be spare and lyrical but the threads are too thick. i like to peddle universalities like an old timey door to door salesman.
what’s going to happen to us and why am i so scared all the time?
what’s going to happen to us and why am i so scared all the time?
i don’t understand why people pay money for horror movies and rollercoasters when you can get that in your head for free.
what am i going to tell my children i did with this fear?