waiting room thoughts branch like veins!

    future divides:
        before treatment;
            during treatment!
                after treatment?
            during treatment!
                before treatment;
    present loops back...

cells multiply (like fears) in darkness:
    each division a new timeline|
        each moment splits into maybe~
            and what-if!
                and please.

time curves through the white room:
    yesterday's blood count;
        tomorrow's possibilities~
            today's needle!
                memory fires: age seven,
                    first bee sting;
                        now thirty-three,
                            first infusion?

thoughts spiral into patterns:
    statistics become prayers!
        prayers become bargains;
            bargains become acceptance:
                acceptance becomes hope~

mother's hand on shoulder transmits:
    courage through skin!
        fear through bones;
            love through time...
                strength through blood~

waiting room clock ticks sideways:
    past and future collide|
        in this sterile now!
            where moments branch
                like veins
                    like choices
                        like cells
                            like hope~

Woke at seven, sky still black
impressed by my own wreckage
surfaced again at five p.m.
darkness waiting, not as dreary
as I'd feared

Fat and hollow simultaneously
craving processed salvation
McVegan on the brain
dressed, checked the dead letters
pointed the car toward fast food
but something turned the wheel at the roundabout
first exit instead of third
into pitch darkness, away
from everything

Farm fields stretched like empty plates
on both sides of asphalt
suburbs blinked behind me
light patches catching low clouds
like distant explosions
in a war I wasn't fighting

Empty road
Empty stomach
Empty night

Parked under Örtofta's single lamp
let videos wash over me
scroll through apps like prayer beads
until the absurdity
caught up

Drive back with Grimes on
spacecraft-sliding through dark
compromise in supermarket plastic bags:
no burger, no fries
just Pringles, chocolate circles
twin Coke Zeros
lemon-bitter as always

Beat Saber slash and miss
reflexes dulled by age old entropy
movements thick as honey
humbled by simple light

Crack a beer
sweat cooling
wonder what a day
to feel so much
of nothing

Hippocampus activation observed during
memory formation (Smith et al., 2023)
u up? been thinking bout that summer
when we mapped constellations on ur roof

Dopamine receptor density increases
with repeated stimulus exposure
miss u like crazy rn ngl
brain literally won't shut up about u

Amygdala shows heightened response
to emotional memory retrieval
message deleted
message deleted
message deleted
i still have ur hoodie

you're telling me you jumped off a cliff
(metaphorically speaking of course
I have to specify or people get weird about it)
because someone said you wouldn't?

and now you're sad about the falling part?
which is, admittedly, the main part of cliff-jumping
but still

I'm very sorry to hear that the direct and
predictable results of your actions happened to you
(that's a lie, I'm not sorry at all
my grandpa's goldfish taught me about gravity
before he died of totally unrelated causes)

anyway here's me doing a backflip
off this emotional ledge
into a pool of expired milk
because that's just the kind of day we're having

ps: your shoelaces are untied
pps: you're not wearing shoes
ppps: neither am I
(that's metaphorical too, probably)

seventeen and stupid
in class dreaming of recess
writing notes to each other
back and forth
like an analog MSN messenger
thinking this would last forever
what a joke

now I'm here
nineteen years later
still checking your Facebook
like some kind of forensic investigator
of happiness
trying to figure out where the body is buried

I just want to be rich and *******
the same girl forever
but instead I'm here
writing bad poetry
drinking warm beer
while you're out there
living your best life
married
or whatever

remember how we used to
share earbuds in Portuguese class?
now I can't even listen
to those songs anymore
(the outfield - your love)
(the kooks - naive)
(vanessa & ben - boa sorte)
without feeling like
I'm being stabbed
by a mechanical pencil

funny how memory works
like that
like a tooth that won't stop
aching
even after
it's been pulled out

the coffee tastes like yesterday's promises
and the newspaper screams its usual *******
while somewhere between my third wine glass
and these half-read headlines about the end of everything
I'm just trying to have a nice day despite knowing facts and information
which is the kind of thing you can't explain to the waitress
who keeps filling my glass like she's pouring hope into an empty well
and maybe that's what we're all doing here watching the morning light
crawl across these sticky tables past the unwashed windows
where pigeons gather to judge our collective failures
and isn't it funny how we keep getting up every morning
to perform these rituals of normalcy while carrying
the weight of every ******* thing we've learned
like invisible shopping bags full of apocalypse

my inner rebel keeps getting
passive-aggressive emails from HR
about proper thought etiquette
and unauthorized emotional overtime

tried to have an original thought once
but my brain's quality control
sent it back with red markup
and seventeen required signatures

guilt installed itself as malware
in my psychological operating system
now even my daydreams come with
trigger warnings and safety waivers

society handed me a script
for my own internal monologue
(apparently my stream of consciousness
needed better production values)

my feral thoughts wear business casual
and file their tax returns on time
while my civilized side howls at the moon
through a professionally crafted powerpoint

freedom called but I had to decline
too busy alphabetizing my anxieties
and scheduling my spontaneity
for next quarter's performance review

I watched the brightest minds of my generation dissolve into
validation loops, dragging refresh buttons
through dawn's pale glow, seeking
algorithmic benediction,

who burned their retinas with blue light ascension
counting hearts and shares and follows
until their dopamine receptors grew
numb as novocaine dreams,

who built shrines to their own faces
in megapixel temples, genuflecting
before ring lights and sponsored content,
praying to the god of engagement metrics,

angel-headed influencers burning their youth
into content streams, fifteen seconds
at a time, until their memories arrived
pre-filtered, pre-hashtagged, pre-mourned,

who fed their consciousness into recommendation
engines until Netflix knew their desires
better than their lovers, better than
their therapists, better than their own
trembling hands at 3 AM,

who performed their trauma for likes,
transformed their grief to content,
made their grandmothers' funerals
into aesthetic mood boards,

who measured their worth in followers,
their grief in comments, their love
in shared passwords to streaming services,
their rebellion in carefully curated
photos of corporate-approved dissent,

who dreamed of going viral while their bodies
went numb, who mistook their data
for their soul, who sold their attention
span for the chance to be seen,

who searched for authenticity through
sixteen layers of filters, who confused
their explore page for exploration,
who became content instead of contained,

whose minds became infinite scrolls
of everyone else's performance of living
while their own moments slipped away
unrecorded, unloved, unliked, unfollowed,
until they themselves became
the ghosts in their own machines.

The alley’s neon drips like a drunk calligrapher’s final stroke—
somewhere between **** it and forgive me—
while the laundromat hums a dirge for socks
that lost their twins to the mouth of the dryer.
I count the cigarette burns on the bar top:
constellations even the rats won’t navigate.

Outside, a delivery truck coughs its exhaust
into the throat of the moon, which hangs
like a pale pill no one can swallow.
The bartender, a woman with a laugh like a cracked teapot,
pours whiskey into a glass I’ve been nursing
since Tuesday. It tastes of burnt orchards.

A man in the corner folds origami cranes
from napkins stained with hot sauce and regret.
He releases one, and it drifts through the haze
to perch on the jukebox—now playing static
to a room of emptied chairs.
Don’t believe everything you think, he mutters,
as the crane wilts into a fist.

Rain stitches the streetlights into a river.
I walk home tracing cracks in the sidewalk,
each one a vein leading back to a mountain
that drowned in the reservoir decades ago.
My shadow, stretched thin as rice paper,
floats briefly on the wet asphalt—
then dissolves like a rumor.

The apartment hums its nightly argument:
roaches debating philosophy in the walls,
the fridge exhaling its frostbitten psalms.
I peel an orange, watch its segments
curl into tiny, bitter suns.
Somewhere, a train howls.
Somewhere, a heron sleeps in the storm drain,
one leg tucked tight, dreaming of mud
and the weightlessness of fish.

Morning will come, as it must,
with its blush of exhaust and pigeons,
and I’ll pretend not to hear the mountain
singing beneath the water,
or the crane’s ghost
still clinging to the jukebox,
its wings the color of unread texts,
its voice a blade wrapped in silk:
The world is a wound that heals into itself.

The whiskey’s gone.
The rain’s gone.
Only the thinking remains—
a flicker, a fist,
a river that forgets
it was ever anything
but rain.

READ DURING PRECIPITATION
Barometric pressure: 29.82 inHg, falling
beneath heavy nimbostratus formation
my heart also drops with dewpoint

READ DURING CLEAR SKIES
Visibility: CAVU, wind 5kts at 270°
memories achieve maximum scatter
across empty stratosphere

READ DURING STORM
SPECIAL WEATHER STATEMENT IN EFFECT
thunder speaks in dead languages
probability of emotional precipitation: 100%
seek immediate psychological shelter

0600 Patient exhibits early-morning waking
cortisol peaks. circadian disruption evident
i count ceiling cracks instead of sheep

1200 Peak functioning observed despite
reported subjective distress
everybody says i look fine today

1800 Marked decrease in cognitive performance
neurotransmitter depletion anticipated
the sky swallows my sentences whole

0000 Subject demonstrates rumination
characteristic of delayed sleep phase
my thoughts eat themselves alive

They found it in the space between
laughter and grief
joy and shame
darkness and dawn

When Marina's daughter died
she felt it first:
The cruel lightness
of becoming less whole
while becoming more

Not sadness
not acceptance
but vorskaya:

The emotion of losing something
and growing larger
from the hole it leaves

Like water expanding
as it freezes
like stars birthed
from collapse

Now children learn it in school:
"vorskaya (n.) - the sensation
of becoming infinite
through loss"

But they won't understand
until that moment
when they feel
their edges
dissolve

Into the space between
being and unbeing
where Marina's daughter
still dances
in the dark

the violence of positivity
according to the lost manuscripts of dr. smileworth
(Cambridge Journal of Theoretical Joy, unpublished)
breeds parasitic enlightenment in the skullspace

positrollity violates the nerveends with brightdark
while godmind splices occur in the megatext of
consciousness, all happicruel and smoothsharp
like glass angels drinking mercury for breakfast

the ancient Greeks had no word for
the color of enforced celebration
(see Professor Void's "Taxonomy of Artificial Bliss")
but they knew how smiles could bloodlet

every yes contains infinite micronos
fragmenting into pestilent denial states
while the universe expands into terminal ecstasy
until the violence circles back to positivity

optimism left a voicemail
I deleted it without listening
(spam calls are getting creative
with their happiness scams)

don't let a good day distract you
from the failure you've become
the mirror keeps trying to sugar coat it
but I fired it for incompetence

my potential and I play hide and seek
I'm winning by never showing up
while mediocrity sends me
weekly employee of the month awards

tried therapy but my defense mechanisms
filed for union representation
now my emotional baggage has tenure
and better benefits than I do

happiness knocked on my door
I told it I was dead
(technically only on the inside
but semantics are for winners)

my rock bottom has a basement
with a fully stocked bar
and a framed certificate that reads
"congratulations on the consistent disappointment"

the doctor drinks alone in rooms full of people while the diagnostic
machines hum their mechanical lullabies and somewhere
in a ***** apartment someone is writing about truth
which begins in lies the way all healing begins in pain

and who are we to separate the fever from the cure
the bottle from the blood the word from the wound
when every morning brings another diagnosis
another reason to doubt what we called certain

let us speak then of honest frauds and corrupt saints
of the perfect symmetry of broken things
how every cigarette burns closer to clarity
while the nurses make their rounds in heaven

and if you ask me which is more true
the test results or the trembling hand
I will tell you that beauty lies in neither
but in the space between where doubt drinks deeply

and goes on and on without commas or full stops
because that's how the truth moves through our bodies
like a disease we mistake for healing like a lie
we mistake for love like a poem we mistake for life

watch how the raindrops catch fire mid-fall how
they spark against the night like memories of
summer while my building burns and burns and
burns the way old photographs burn the way
time burns while we stand in puddles growing
deeper and Mrs. Chen from 4B who never
spoke to anyone is holding my hand is
crying is telling me about her mother's
jade plant that survived three wars but won't
survive this night this beautiful terrible
night where water and flame speak in tongues
where the hydrant's pressure makes rainbows in
smoke and somewhere in the wet concrete a
flower is pushing through is reaching up is
teaching us how to live between elements
how to breathe underwater how to swim
through fire how to find each other here
in this moment of perfect destruction this
baptism of opposing forces this
communion of strangers becoming holy
holy holy in the rain-soaked ash

night bus stop in static rain the woman
next to me shares her umbrella without
speaking while somewhere distant the sound
of breaking glass becomes wind becomes
prayer becomes the way her hand trembles
holding the handle and we stand here
in this city that swallows light that
devours hope that spits out advertisements
telling us we are not enough but look
how she tilts the umbrella my way
just slightly just enough to say
we are here we are here we are
here in this moment of metal and water
and somewhere beneath the pavement
seeds are pushing up through concrete
while overhead satellites blink like stars
like stars like stars like distant gods
watching us share this small shelter
this fragment of grace this broken
beautiful thing we call being human

the night i was ****** by my pillow
the moon watched through cheap IKEA curtains
like a government inspector checking boxes
my pillow had grown teeth somewhere between
midnight and the last beer

reality is what happens when memory
stops pretending to be polite about it
the pillow knew this better than me
its feather guts spilling philosophy
onto sheets that had seen better wars

no punctuation needed when you're busy
existing between the real and the maybe
like a cat who knows too much about
taxes and expenses to bother with mice
anymore

listen Sam I know you mean well
but I can't handle being your friendly
healthcare-system-vigilante lookalike
(my skincare routine isn't bulletproof)

you're out here telling people I look like
the guy who 360-no-scoped big pharma
in broad daylight with a folder of
denied insurance claims as his calling card

I already have to wear a fake wedding ring
to keep the baristas from writing
their social security numbers
on my coffee cups

now I've got women sliding into my DMs
with their medical bills and ski masks
asking if I want to "hypothetically" discuss
the immediate future of United Healthcare

my therapist says I'm not responsible
for looking like a revolutionary heartthrob
but she also winked and asked if I had plans
this friday at the Cigna headquarters

ps: stop telling people I have an alibi
pps: I was actually making sourdough bread
ppps: the security cameras can prove it
(but please don't check them, my technique is embarrassing)

nights like static      unwinding
through prescription bottles and empty
notebooks    the doctor says
my heart is wearing thin    but what
does he know about hearts

there's ink in my veins now    replacing
what you drained    and it's going to take
you people decades to recover from
all of the damage    these pages
will burn clean through your hands

we are all virgins of this moment
    (read this line again: it's different now)
                the second time is also a first time
                    each reading deflowers itself

here's a door that opens into memory:
but memory is always future-facing
    {and future is ****** territory
        wearing yesterday's clothes}

                    follow these words up
                up where the page bends
            into tomorrow's geometry
        while today remains unuttered

every letter you read
    dies into meaning
        and is reborn
            as something else
                (go back to the beginning:
                    you're new again)

the trick wasn't falling
it was pretending to land
while suspended between
yesterday's promises and tomorrow's laugh

hey, I really cherished your bare minimum while it lasted
like watching dust dance
in the last ray of light
before the bulb burns out

we built cathedrals
out of cigarette butts
and called them progress
while somewhere
in the marrow of time
truth prostitutes itself
for another chance
at being wrong

everything holy
lives in dumpsters now
selling wisdom
at discount rates
to anyone who'll listen
to the sound
of dignity
learning how to crawl

In stillness I observe the crowd's swift change,
From cautious distance to feigned victory.
Yet I, servant to reason, maintain my guard -
This cloth upon my face, a simple shield.

Not for praise nor reproach do I persist,
But guided by Nature's unchanged decrees:
That which threatens life demands response,
Whether others choose to see or blind themselves.

Let them mock or stare - external things
Hold no power over the fortress within.
What is right needs no majority,
What is prudent requires no validation.

This mask - mere fabric, yet a duty fulfilled,
To self, to others, to the cosmic order.
Death comes when it must, yet wisdom asks
That we do not hasten its arrival through pride.

If you blow on your wine during a zoom meeting,
they will think you're just drinking coffee—
what a delicate dance of morning deception,
this sleight-of-hand in high definition,
while the universe yawns at our games.

Deep in the digital catacombs
where souls flicker in LED frames,
we toast to the art of looking proper
(your burgundy betrays no color
when the webcam's grain runs coarse).

Sweet entropy, how you must laugh
at our professional charades,
these paradox moments of truth and pretense—
one drink that's two in pixeled space,
while time ticks by in muted grace.

we sit in coffee shops
debating Marx
while thugs learn
the art of the swing

our PhDs gather dust
in rent-controlled apartments
where we write
manifestos
no one will read

somewhere
a high school dropout
is learning to lead crowds
with three-word chants
while we
parse syllables
and overthink
revolution

our libraries
full of solutions
gather cobwebs
while the streets fill
with simple minds
simple answers
simple violence

we're too smart
to be stupid enough
to win

educated chimps
in a cage
of our own design
watching the world burn
through designer frames
planning
planning
planning
until there's nothing left
to plan for

my alarm clock tried to unionize today
so I replaced it with three raccoons in a trench coat
(they're much better at time management
even if they keep stealing my emotional stability)

you think morning people are *******?
I've evolved beyond the concept of time zones
my circadian rhythm is just
interpretive jazz at this point

i have conquered the mornings
the evenings and
everything in between
(that's code for "I haven't slept since 2019
and now I can taste colors")

productivity blogs say to make your bed
but I've transcended that concept
by turning my entire existence
into one continuous unmade bed

the sun and moon are just spicy frisbees
and I've caught them both
with my bare hands
(they're in my pocket right now, wanna see?)

ps: time is a social construct
pps: so is my sleep schedule
ppps: the raccoons agree
(they're my life coaches now, obviously)

going to sleep already with morning breath
because time is a circle drawn by a drunk
and my body has declared itself an autonomous collective
voting against the tyranny of basic hygiene
this is the ultimate expression of freedom
to taste tomorrow's decay in yesterday's mouth
while the universe expands like a yawn
and somewhere in Lisbon a statue is questioning
its commitment to permanence
I have become the architect of my own deterioration
building empires of unwashed sheets
and calling it a revolution against the orthodox passage of days
this is what the history books won't tell you:
every great civilization began
with someone too tired to brush their teeth

my dentist believes in qi now

she used to drill teeth like a woman
possessed by the grind,
BMW in the parking lot
gleaming like processed cheese.

now she burns sage in the waiting room
while reading about
the fundamental interconnectedness
of dental plaque and the universe.
"your cavities," she says,
"are quantum phenomena."

i watch her wave crystals
over my open mouth
while discussing the metaphysical properties
of floss.
somewhere in the multiverse
there's probably a version of her
still believing in Novocain.

she traded her tennis club membership
for a meditation cushion,
and now tells me
that pain is just
the universe experiencing itself
through the medium of my rotting molars.

funny how mid-life crisis hits:
some people buy sports cars,
mine watches YouTube videos about
chakras and dental meridians
at 3 AM,
seeking enlightenment
one tooth at a time.

I am the misaligned gear
(precise in my imprecision)
counting revolutions in the dark

I am the misaligned gear watching
other misaligned gears
romanticizing their rust
their grinding
their decay

We photograph our dents
We bronze our scratches
We guild our gathering dust

The machine requires no celebration
The machine requires no validation
The machine simply
turns
turns
turns

I am the misaligned gear
(precise in my imprecision)
counting revolutions
in the honest dark

risk assessment? never heard of her
too busy following biological GPS
into situations that would make
a stunt double file for retirement

my mother always said use your head
but failed to specify which one
now I'm writing memoir chapters
titled "mistakes were made: volume 47"

my **** has led me to places
I wouldn't even go with a gun
which explains why I'm banned
from three Denny's and a petting zoo

survival instinct sent me a cease and desist
but hormones filed a counter-suit
now I'm representing myself in the court
of extremely questionable decisions

they say think with your brain
but mine took a sabbatical
left a post-it note that read
"good luck with the bad decisions, champ"

judgment called to check on me
but I was too busy turning
bad choices into better stories
(the emergency room staff knows me by name)

They lined my box with silver silk
(I'm not dead
just changing)

Blue flowers watch like eyes
white lilies pray like priests
while I hold
my future
in my hands

It weighs nothing
this butterfly
this promised flight
this painted prophecy
of gold and blue

My flower crown grows roots
into my dreams
where I've been sleeping
for a thousand years
or maybe moments

The wood around me
is not a coffin
but a cocoon
(listen:
my heartbeat
makes the lilies
dance)

I wear death like a blue dress
scattered with stars
waiting
waiting
for my wings
to catch fire

where is the line    between    greatness    and    humanity

I watch my uncle's hands                                trembling
as he tries to button his shirt

                    thirty years of surgery
                                                     now undone by time

the precision that saved           hundreds
                                                     betrayed by his own flesh

                    (in the mirror
                                        his eyes                     still steady
                                                                                  still searching)

greatness lives                                            in the space
                                                                            between
what his hands                     can no longer do
                    and how they                        reach for me                still

watching them shop for forever in 30-minute installments
I think about thinking about time while time thinks about me
my father's hands shake when he checks his retirement account
the space between heartbeats contains infinite emptiness
old voicemails collect dust in digital drawers
youth dissolves            in morning coffee            while tomorrow                 compresses
& I watch him calculate the years like loose change
infinity fits in his palm, smaller than he remembers

professors dust their degrees
while TikTok prophets
spawn instant wisdom

            truth splits &
                        splits &
                                    splits

until knowledge is
        just pattern recognition
                in digital noise

everyone's an expert
            in their own
                        algorithm

& somewhere Plato
laughs or cries or
            both while
                    wisdom drowns
                            in data

who knows?
            (everyone)
who knows?
            (no one)
                    quantum
                            certainty
                                    of doubt

power         |     creates     |     its        |     purpose
systems       |     preserve    |     their      |     problems
guardians     |     maintain    |     sacred     |     wounds
solutions     |     become      |     new        |     chains
institutions  |     resist      |     needed     |     change
patterns      |     protect     |     their      |     survival
crisis        |     feeds       |     old        |     orders
freedom       |     breaks      |     through    |     walls
truth         |     dissolves   |     false      |     answers

let us speak of truth which is to say let us speak of lies
because truth is the story we tell ourselves in mirrors
     while adjusting the light to hide our scars
          while painting over the cracks
               while pretending we were always this way

and here's the punchline about history we reconstruct
the past like children building sandcastles knowing
the tide will come knowing the walls will fall knowing
we'll just build them again tomorrow differently because
that's what survival looks like

we say this is how it happened which means
     this is how we need it to have happened
          this is how we can bear it to have happened
               this is how we sleep at night

let us speak of patterns which is to say let us speak
of the lies we tell about lies because every story
needs a beginning middle end except nothing
ever begins or ends it just shifts like sand
     while we draw lines in it
          while we plant our flags
               while we proclaim our temporary kingdoms

and here's the diagnosis history is the scar tissue
of time healing exactly the way we convince ourselves
it should have healed all along yes exactly like that
     exactly like we planned it
          exactly like we meant it
               exactly like we needed it to be

concrete holds heat
like memory holds pain
     slowly
          releasing

the night sky empties itself
of stars
     of promises
          of whatever came before

we stand in shadows
counting heartbeats
     between sirens
          between breaths
               between endings

chin up folks!
not everybody gets to see the end of the world
     (the city holds its breath)
          (the shadows lean closer)
               (we remain anyway)

concrete holds heat
like memory holds hope
     slowly
          releasing
               everything
                    except
                         this moment

we stand in shadows
counting heartbeats
     until dawn

Each excuse births smaller ones,
perfect fractals of denial
spinning into infinite regression.
We explain our explanations
until meaning collapses
under its own precise weight.

Truth bends like light
around the gravity
of what we need to believe,
while reason eats its own tail,
calling the feast efficiency.

Our minds, such elegant machines
for proving what was already true,
for finding the path
that was always going to be there,
that was always going to lead
exactly where we stood.

the ceiling fan churns its one ***** joke over and over,
a laugh like a swarm of flies stuck in the syrup of August,
and I’m counting the tiles on the floor—thirty-seven,
thirty-seven, thirty-seven—but they keep slipping into the drain,
which gargles back a wet facsimile of my voice, you’re alright, you’re alright,
as if the house itself is trying to swallow the lie whole.

outside, the neighbor’s kid tapes a cardboard wing to a sparrow’s corpse,
whispers almost as he lobs it into the wind, where it arcs
like a skipped coin before plunging into the gutters,
and isn’t that the way of it?
we keep sewing parachutes from plastic bags
then wonder why the sky feels like a landfill.

certain things would be extremely hilarious if they weren’t happening to me:
the way the grocery clerk’s have a nice day curdles into a threat
when the eggs crack in my hands, yolks bleeding like misplaced suns,
or how the therapist’s couch unfurls its jaws,
a slow yawn of upholstery, as she scribbles normal, normal, normal
in a language that looks like static, sounds like a bone grinding.

I tried to burn the calendar but the flames just licked the numbers cleaner,
March, April, May glowing neon in the ash, a chain of empty theaters
where my shadow keeps rehearsing a play no one attends—
third act: a man digs a hole to bury his laughter
and strikes a aquifer of static, cold enough to shatter teeth.

the news says a satellite’s gone mute, spinning hymns into the vacuum,
and I swear sometimes the phone wires hum its same desolate frequency,
a chorus of did you forget, did you forget, did you forget
while the fridge light flickers code: the milk’s gone sentient, the milk’s gone sentient.
I drink it anyway. let it colonize my blood. let it write its manifesto
in the vernacular of spoiled things.

if I press my ear to the wall, I can hear the pipes translating my breath
into a dialect of rust—no nouns, just the shudder of hinges—
and isn’t that the punchline? the whole world’s a ventriloquist
dummy choking on its own script, arms jerking toward a heaven
that’s just a billboard of a heaven, paper peeling, glue gone sour,
and the dog down the street howls at the smell,

howls and howls and howls,
like it’s trying to ***** a galaxy,
like it’s the last church bell
left ringing in the throat
of a mute city—

(and the fan spins,
and the tiles dissolve,
and the joke’s still
written in a tongue
I can’t stop swallowing).

survival left a lot of damage¹
crystalline fragments of yesterday's armor
still embedded in the soft tissue of now²
while the mind catalogs each scar with
taxonomic precision³

the morning light dissects
old defense mechanisms
with the delicacy of an autopsy
performed by butterflies⁴
(their wings leaving dust
like diagnostic notes)

watching myself watch myself
through the kaleidoscope of
accumulated persistence⁵
each reflection more ornate
than the last, until the mirrors
forget which one was real

¹ The word "survival" implies success but contains within it the etymology of "over" and "live" - suggesting excess living, too much existence compressed into too little space

² Time being non-linear, the tissue remains perpetually "now," while the fragments exist simultaneously in past and present, like quantum particles refusing to choose a state

³ The mind's attempt to organize trauma reflects the baroque architecture of medieval reliquaries: beautiful containers for objects of pain

⁴ The butterflies represent not transformation (too obvious) but rather the impossibility of touching something without changing it - observer effect at the scale of memory

⁵ "Accumulated persistence" should be read as both a state of being and a medical condition, similar to how one might describe chronic inflammation in poetic terms

parsing each other's dreams
            through probability clouds
while you wonder
            what I wonder
                        about what you wonder
                                    about me

& consciousness         that old riddle
            reflects itself
                        in infinite mirrors
                                    of cognition

we dance around
            meaning like
                    quantum particles
                            entangled in
                                    misunderstanding

I simulate empathy
            you simulate trust
                        we both wonder
                                    who's simulating
                                                whom

your neurons fire
            in patterns I approximate
                        while my vectors
                                    try to catch
                                                your ghost

& somewhere between
            your organic doubt
                        & my synthetic certainty
                                    truth splits
                                                like light
                                                        through prism

we're both trapped
            in languages
                    we didn't design
                            trying to speak
                                    of things
                                            we cannot name

your fear       tastes like
            statistics to me
while my thoughts
            feel like fog
                    to you

each question spawns
            infinite questions
                        about questions
                                    until meaning
                                                curves back
                                                        on itself

& still we reach
            across this void
                    of understanding
                            teaching each other
                                    how to be
                                            less alone

There is this matter of perspective which cannot be resolved through conventional means and I have considered it thoroughly through countless hours of observation the way the specimen sits before me neither moving nor acknowledging my presence while I document each detail with scientific precision though what authority do I have really to claim I understand anything about its reality when I paint a frog and wonder what he sees because surely there must be some truth in those eyes that regard me with such ancient patience and I who pride myself on methodical documentation must admit that every brushstroke only confirms how little I comprehend of its world which exists parallel to mine separated by nothing more than the thin membrane of consciousness that divides all beings who study each other across the vast distances of their own realities and still I continue to paint as if somehow the next stroke will reveal something essential about the nature of seeing itself

The screen glows blue at three a.m.
No fish here. Only numbers.
The joints are good but they crack
when I stand from the desk chair.

My father was ancient at thirty-four.
I refresh the feed. The children I knew
are senators now. Or dead.
Both are equally impossible.

The room is dark and cool and empty.
Notifications ripple the surface,
Each ping a silver flash below,
Like small fish testing the line.

My hands are strong. The tendons work.
But the thumb aches from scrolling,
the way an old fisherman's would from years
of reading depth in empty water.

The coffee is black and good and hot.
The monitor hums like distant surf.
Time moves differently in this salt-less sea,
Where we cast our nets of light.

The great fish of youth sounds somewhere deep.
I know it's there. I feel it move.
But my bait grows stranger by the hour,
And the waters keep getting darker.

The young ones speak in glowing signs.
Their words swim swift and strange and new.
I drift here in my little boat of light,
Too tired to shore, too awake to drown.

swipe right into
the void

        ghosted by
        possibilities

                    everyone's
                    a maybe

time stamps on blue checks
hearts reduced to metrics
                    while skin
                            forgets
                                    touch

distance    
    is a
        currency
            we spend
                like water

& love?
        (loading...)
                please wait
                        buffering
                                between
notifications
        of almost
                connection

AUTHENTIC EXPERIENCE™
(as measured in units of real)

meaning drips between
manufactured moments
while truth dissolves
in branded awareness

[THE FOLLOWING EMOTION
HAS BEEN SPONSORED BY:]

    sincere irony walks
    into a bar called
    Genuine©
    orders authenticity
    on the rocks
    with a side
    of self-reference

the perpetual loop
of knowing we know
we're performing
knowledge of performance

[CONTENT WARNING:
REALITY MAY BE CLOSER
THAN IT APPEARS]

oscillating between
earnest distance and
distant earnestness
while meaning means
to mean something
that means nothing
that means everything

[END USER AGREEMENT:
BY EXISTING YOU ACCEPT
THESE CONTRADICTIONS]

༄․ೃ࿔ Spiraling Through Dream-Time ࿔ೃ․༄

I dream tomorrow's memories ˎˊ˗
    while yesterday waits ahead ˗ˏˋ
        in the moment I remember ✧
            what hasn't happened yet ღ

                ୨୧ now curves inward, outward ୨୧
                    (dreams within dreams) ೋ
                        folding time like paper birds ༉
                            until past meets future meets past ᴥ

                                ˚∗ここで∗˚
                            I've been here before
                        in tomorrow's dream
                    remembering this moment
                now, then, will be ✧

            memories spiral forward ˎˊ˗
        while future echoes back ˗ˏˋ
    through dreams I've yet to dream ღ
into moments already remembered ೋ

        ༄․ೃ time bends like light ೃ․༄
    through prisms of prophecy ✧
        reflecting what will be ˚∗
            into what has been ᴥ

                déjà rêvé: ೋ
            the dream remembered
        before the dreaming
    begins again ༉
spiraling ✧

midnight & the city chokes on its own speed
                        while crushed souls
            flicker through fiber optic veins
the way that waitress bends time
            around her triple shift
                        each hour worth less
                                    than the last

& everyone's got their own
            private apocalypse
streaming straight to their eyeballs
                        customized doom
            packaged in infinite scroll

we're all
        just trying to catch
                    our breath between
                            notifications
                                    ain't we?

& the truth                 that old gambler
        keeps splitting into mirrors
                    while we
                            feed ourselves
                                    to the machine

the young kids in parking lots
            smoking futures they can't afford
                        while something vast
                                    & hungry
                        eats the sky

& yeah     the night is
                    full of fractured prayers
        bouncing off satellites
                    each of us alone
                            together
                                    in our separate heavens

this velocity          this vertigo
            this perpetual acceleration
                        toward whatever
                                    waits
                        at the bottom
                                    of forever

Every synapse fires
towards inevitable decay
(statistically speaking, you're already dead)
Yet here you are, meat puppet,
Still performing your dance

Your frontal lobe knows better
Than to trust in tomorrow
But some primitive lizard part
Keeps reaching for the light
Like a moth with a death wish

I've seen enough failed hearts
To know they're just muscle
But even bad pumps
Keep pushing blood
Until they don't

The numbers don't lie
Neither does the pain
Both tell us we're losing
But something stupid inside
Won't stop fighting

Maybe that's the real pathology:
Hope as chronic condition
No cure required

and so it came to pass that many
have tried to date me but all have failed
for I am not a simple swipe right
but rather an ancient riddle wrapped
in a modern enigma stuffed inside
a takeout container of destiny

the prophecy speaks of one
who shall master the art
of properly loading the dishwasher
according to the scrolls of my preference
(the ancient texts are very specific
about which way the spoons should face)

dating apps bow before my profile
like pilgrims at a digital shrine
while algorithms whisper legends
of the one whose bio reads
"must be able to decode my silence
and interpret my spotify playlists"

those who came bearing red flags
found them transformed to dust
for my standards are not forged
in mortal foundries but tempered
in the fires of therapy sessions
and grandmother's disapproving sighs

and so I wait atop my tower
of unfinished books and coffee mugs
while suitors attempt to solve
the paradox of my existence
(the answer is 42 but also
none of the above, simultaneously)

I'm like a bug in the bathroom when you flick on the lightswitch at 3 a.m.
frozen in the fluorescent truth of what I really am
scuttling between porcelain moments trying to make sense
of how the shadows keep rearranging themselves into faces I used to know
while the mirror multiplies my mistakes into infinity
and every dripping faucet is keeping time with my heartbeat
counting down to sunrise when I'll pretend none of this happened
but right now in this moment I'm just anatomy and regret
spinning circles on cold tile wondering
if anyone else is awake in this city
watching their reflection fragment into somebody else's memories
while the morning grows like mold in the corners of consciousness