Lucid

This is cinema, I suddenly think, neck snapping up. I can almost see myself shrinking in a frame, sitting in the window of a cafe in Mexico City, till I realise it's not a film but a dream.

INSIDE

Cold air creeps in through a poorly insulated window. It moves slowly, infecting things with cold as it rolls along. No summer breeze with its radiative warmth—the cold is a bad song to which no one can remember the words, that song that plays over and over in your mind, affecting your thoughts and dulling your actions.

Archive

What worries me is not that we will not be forever, or that this is ending, or even, really, that you will not be nostalgic; what worries me is that I can't tell what or how much I will remember. I don't know what got saved, and what erased. I have shot a roll on film, and what worries me is that I will disappointed with the results. What worries me is that I will not contain this time once it's done. But also, if I'm honest, I'm worried you won't contain me.

ROAD TRIP

I decided that, in order to be a good driver, I must never go more than five over the speed limit. I decided that, in order to be a good driver, I must always pull into the rightmost lane to allow faster traffic to pass. I decided that, in order to be a good driver, I must only take even-numbered exits. I decided that, in order to be a good driver, I must only pass cars if their license plate is different than mine. I decided that, in order to be a good driver, I must only run the windshield wipers for five wipes in a row. Then we began to argue about why it mattered how many times the wipers wiped. Then you began to tell me that it didn't matter where the license plates were from. Then I let you out of the car because you wanted to take Exit 71.

A case for proximity

The most dangerous feeling is comfort. The palm of a foot wrapping around a calf or a hair caught in beard or the whistle of the tea kettle halfway out of sleep. Headache from too much closeness, breathless from too much contact, restless with cabin fever. You don't know how to hold yourself upright anymore, your body just wants to lean. A sick feeling, like sleeping till one in winter, or halloween candy. A druggish sluggishness. Thick blood, slow moves. I'm going to stay in bed again today to be with you.

A CASE FOR DISTANCE

for Sheena

We started a fire that burned so fiercely so quickly that we hadn't readied the firepit for the wind and the rain. When we grew quiet with cold, we realized that the fire had died and we tried adding wood, but it was too late; and now the embers sit covered in ash—too cold to keep us warm, too hot to let us clean up the mess.

BRANCHES

The thin, long shadows reach through my window and across my bedspread. They remind me that though, long after the sun has taken its rest, the moon stands sentry from above, its gaze gives life to otherwise innocuous figures in an altogether deranged manner. Where once the branch of a tree might wave haplessly from above, it now looms treacherously. Its sharp corners mean to graze the arm of the silent sneakerby. I pull the blanket to my chin and remind myself of the difference between real and imagined sensations only to become acutely aware of the many different forms that pain can take when left to the resting mind.