01
It really was as I wanted,
I know apathy,
but was it a party or
just weather happening to me.
02
Cinnamon buns.
I said it like a neutral object,
like something that would still exist
even if I didn’t show up to it,
like a hangover, like a flight, like noon.
03
You said you were looking forward to it,
for weeks,
after everything ended,
as if a mo(u)rning could still hold.
04
I said I was trying to live my life,
recover
—that word again
recover from where, exactly,
recover into what.
05
A caravan to where.
We are one, no we were.
Love likes to imagine motion as shared,
but I missed the stop,
and the road kept moving
without asking if I was ready.
06
I am here again.
Sun, sea
the water looks like broth,
everything broken down enough to continue,
warm, suspended, not needing me.
07
The sun keeps going,
it really does,
no one checks, no one stops it.
Why does life go on the way it does,
why is everything the same as it was,
even after we say no.
08
The elderly pass through my quiet hour,
soft shoes, careful breaths,
alive in a way that feels unreasonable,
as if arrival is still allowed.
09
I don’t see myself there.
They look impossible
old and still going places.
10
Empathy has no end of the kind I want,
but here I am thinking anyway,
listening to a voice sing the end of the world
like it’s furniture,
like it can be shifted without breaking.
11
You disappeared.
I know it’s small, I know it’s an app,
but suddenly there is no room
where I am still occurring.
12
Messages arrive anyway,
warmth without direction,
champagne language, silk punctuation,
affection that doesn’t know where to land.
Everyone loves me.
This is the problem.
13
I went out again.
Bodies worked.
Mouths knew what to do.
Efficiency everywhere.
After, I felt angry
at how little resistance there was.
14
Tonight I met women carrying futures
in their pockets, folded soft,
children held like proof
that care keeps going past the ages we fear.
I nodded, I smiled,
I didn’t even want to come out tonight,
my friend did
and still I thought of a cinnamon bun.
15
You know it’s unjust how the nights stay dark
and nothing stops
not the moon, huge and indifferent,
still beating even when the sun is gone.
16
Like a root in water,
not planted, not drowning,
just held there.
17
My family, my brother,
plastic tables, faces stiff with trying.
I am in the sun eating without hunger,
as if chewing could solve continuity.
18
The birds should stop.
My friends should go away.
They are too kind,
a blindness of bliss.
I love them.
19
I didn’t lose your love.
I just left.
That feels worse.
20
My heart goes far,
I go further,
like mushrooms finding trees without seeing,
until the trees know it’s over
and the forest still looks fine.
21
This must be what it feels like
to be rooted
and full of thought.
22
When did thought start.
Bring me back before plans,
before small promises become lethal.
23
Bring me back to the broth,
let everything stay dissolved,
let it keep simmering,
let it not ask me anything
as life goes on
the way it does.