spotlessvast

[spotlessvast]

        Smear grammatical nonsense on that campaign and set your lures, those mindless gluttons come forth in no time. Critics stained with beer turn up their nose with a smirk and a choked laugh. One event divides from another and so on, and so forth, like clockwork, the land-fishermen of Downtown draw their lines. 'Here's a promise for wealth.' Killed by strangulation. 'Here's a promise for food.' Killed by starving peers helplessly attacking before the hook can reach the eye. 'I love you, come home with me.' Killed by infectious indolence.

        A flat-handed smack on the table. A crash of glass on the wall behind. Not one for talking? Not one for listening? Jam your ring finger into your ears and let the graft blanket your brain. That amplified buzz can't get you here.

        That's nothing more than indolence. All that wistful talk of Eves and indulgences, nothing but lures and ropes. Pull on those reins and fuck the world, disembodied from flesh and blood, scream and bitch until your eardrums burst! Soon these weapons will lay path to abundance and the divisions of Downtown will dissolve by natural force. Let the heat mist clear your nose and pores, and go on!

        I'll kick and scream and sputter some more. Down with the feedback, I'm starving! Let's eat that sound!

[spotlessvast]

You go to sleep that night under a comforter that is just a bit too thin and a bit too cold, and you wake up with a stiff back. The one you love makes you breakfast again— sweet and savory aromas waft across the hallway and settle on the tip of your nose. He sets two plates on the table, you eat and thank him, and return to your day. He beckons you with a longing gaze, but the discomfort clots even deeper in your stomach.

You brush your hair accompanied by a foggy reflection— (Whether the mirror hasn't been cleaned since your arrival or your eyes fog from tears or your muscles weakened to cause slight vision loss, you don't know)— you carelessly lace your shoes as your lover waits outside the front door. Your hands are dry, and your fingernails are short and clean. Nobody should be this clean. No skin should be this unpleasantly dry. You wait for the rain to soil the plans he made for the day, to ruin the way he so carefully tied his hair, to drench this projection of forced and restrained affection into dissatisfaction. Won't he see it? Won't he understand? These efforts mean nothing, and yet he continues to try.

Outings become futile. Complimentary radio stations in restaurants and grocery stores play muffled chart-toppers from your childhood. Was that song always played at this key? At this tempo? It's slower than you remember, and the difference between B and C# are noted by which sound is slightly more beige when you listen to it.

You have shelter.

You have food.

You go to sleep on that firm mattress and wake up stiff. You go to the kitchen and eat a lovingly made breakfast. His hands must have trembled when he sprinkled blueberries on your pancakes.

You go about your day again, attending to your work, greeting your neighbors in the evening, disappearing back to your bedroom to sleep the next night away.

You wake up. You eat. You work. You go to sleep. He looks at you. You don't understand how he looks at you. You wake up. You eat. You work. You sleep. Your dreams fly out of reach when you open your drooping eyes. You eat. You work. You return home and dry off since your evening commute led you into the rain. You sleep.

You wake up.

You sit at the breakfast table with him.

He calls your name under his breath.

He feels close enough to touch but far enough that your kisses won't ever reach him again.

"Do you like it?"

You hesitantly shake your head.

How long has it been since you were gone? How much of you has changed? No matter how much life seems to stagnate, our cells will die and replace themselves anyways, the time will pass anyways, our joints will fail anyways, our surroundings metamorphose anyways...

"I'm sorry."

You deserved more time. It's useless pretending everything is okay yet. You haven't talked to me, will you talk to me? Please help me understand.

Show me how to cut the fruit you like, show me how you want your eggs cooked. All the time that passes should be time for you to live.

I'm sorry, I was selfish to you.

Show me how you fall in love with life again. May I fall in love with you too?

Bring me on walks through the city and let me sit with you and knit while you read a brand new book you may come to love.

From now, would you show me the you unrestrained by pretenses? This time I will listen to you, and I'll wait for you. This time, show me how you want to be loved.

came back wrong but its from the perspective of the person who came back

[spotlessvast]

Refined circuitry runs the commuter routes smooth; Plucking out faulty wiring with a tuning fork, accustomed to the numbness of droning existence. Functionality, efficiency, neither smiling nor crying, until a shock rushes through my fingers at the touch of another. (The wax muscle to hold my brittle bones is melting.)

Soft hands— numb from shock— on delicate skin, delicate petals. Open them one by one in sun and rain— the numbness fades into vivid color— an aura of pollen rests on my nail. I do not wash my hands today.

The wax muscle to hold my brittle bones is melting under the vibrations of tenor bass noise and my eyes are jumping beans in jars. (Notice / Harden / Compress)

Freezing water undulates from the fountain's spout and settles on its body. A whispering, forceful breath leaves the candle delighted in darkness; Its melting slows to a halt, in lukewarm surroundings, returns to a solitary viewpoint in the loneliness of light. (My body is melting off my nerves / Turns to face them / Asks for a dance)

My hands encased in amber, clinging to pollen and faint afterglows of sweat, intend to love well. I walk the stairwell and fall, the amber cracking to reveal fractions of skin. As children learn to balance themselves as they walk, I intend to balance my weight as I walk forward onto the platform. Stretching my hands toward layered blankets on a bed, sprawling my vulnerable body to showcase my pulsing mind. (Becoming nothing but swirling guts inside the protection of a chrysalis.)

Peering inside the stomach of a guitar— Viewing an X-ray scan of a cat who shows its fur to the sky— Fingertips tugging at the heartstrings, rugged yet gentle palms rest on the chest and unfurl to caress the neck. (Evolution.)

[spotlessvast]

glass telescope

 I sit accompanied by a muted brown melody, with amber glass and idle chatter in my surroundings. Numb to inhale, burning to exhale, searing sweetness in my throat rises to my nostrils and settles in. 

 Wishing to be granted time to absorb the aftertaste of bitterness sizzling through my tongue, drunkenness flings my dizzy head into orbit! At the edge of the solar system sits a black hole the size of a baseball. It does not eat— it is not hungry— it simply sits. Such an easily-overlooked speck in the universe pulls Neptune to a circle, Pluto off its rails, so close to escaping... Yet the event horizon so far waits in patience for each "hello, see you," of the Plutonian year.

The sun, the center of a nesting doll, shaking with vigor at its outer shields. Its untouchable core extends warmth to a broken Earth. Friction rubs wood into fusing of the nuclei— a flash of ultra-violet passing over the retina— cracking past the surface of the sleeping rabbit's den on the moon.

 The Earth I walk does not recognize my hurried footsteps. Even footprints make seismic impacts on microscopic life, so, what does a storm amount to but footprints? Rain and rushing waves of drunken patrons— seating themselves at a carefully arranged dining table— accompanied by muted brown melodies and amber glass, until they can see the stars in their waking life once again.

[spotlessvast]

on metropolis and birds

Woe upon hypnotized complacency, woe upon these miserable substitutes! A bird's-eye-view is a bird's-eye-view whether from a fragile power line or sturdy branch. Huddled doves slowly scatter at rock bottom, tripping and skipping over their own delicate feet, as the commuters scramble to catch the next train. What curse to be constrained to the limits of exhaustion!

A chain-link of devils whispers an offer of refuge in servitude. Have we forgotten how to sleep? Have we forgotten, suspended in time that moves too quick for a walking crowd, how to live? No, the pigeons and rats skitter and crawl between higher footsteps for their next meal. Commuter residents sleep in the comfort of their nests and extend selective hands. Vines encroach upon neighbors only to be slashed away. Have we forgotten the birds?

Atop a sturdy wood tower planted ten feet into the ground, their watchful eyes and short lifespans witness our ever-changing world. Memories carry from their skin to their bones, each and every generation migrating with their families for winter holiday. Unnatural silence is broken by a helicopter rumbling ahead, fading left to right, fading east to west. Noise swells with conversations from the birds, flapping their feathers, startled and gathering again, clinging with their toes to a faint, homeless refuge.

This place was once adorned with color. A vast bleak gray threatens that former abundance into corners, desperately constructing its own. "Stars and string lights are the same soft white," as smoke clouds creep down our lungs, a pair of humans at the side of the road bob their heads and preen.

[spotlessvast]

Suppose you find a package on your doorstep marked to a nearly identical street address. Rookie mistake for the paperboys and mailmen, or the fault of the town designers? One of two answers is to peek inside and leave your mark of curiosity on that disposable piece of cardboard. One of two answers is to leave it unscathed on your number-neighbor’s doorstep without a trace of mistakes.

Seek truth, fear truth. Seek bias, fear bias. Sow malice, reap the consequences. Eggshell floors erode under the fragile feet of faceless pursuers with patchwork personas. Go to hell, you hopeless socialites! To meet another at eye-level these unbelievable days is to absorb mass-produced isotopes.

Creation passes the event horizon and wrings into production. Say — for example, the nice dessert from last night shipped to the grocery store; No one actually knows where it came from. Labeled “Made in China,” trademarked, and distributed for satisfaction’s sake. Printed “Made in America,” trademarked, and distributed to cover one’s traces. The recipe dates back hundreds of years, originates in the backside of Italy or someplace else. Every creation from the heart repackaged into meaningless recipes becomes a tool, a weapon.

Because of this, honesty is preserved between confidants. Desaturated relationships — inescapable scrutiny — allow trust to be preserved between accomplices.

Suppose when one known for a sweet tooth feels sick from the sugar suddenly being ‘too rich’ on their mouth, or a noise musician becomes sensitive to loud sounds, and the vendor of those services loses their most valued patron, you wouldn’t think deeper than the plain statement until that difference in routine is pathologized. Merit is lost or stolen.

裕福の「幸運」って、「正義」に紛いちゃいます。 El “deseo de esas libertades” se confunde con la “incompetencia social.” Ainsi, ceux qui recherchent “l'amour dans la vérité” ne sont coincés qu'avec des désirs. 最终人们对艺术有了洞察力。В центре искусства находится энтропия. Entropie existiert aufgrund des Gesetzes. एन्ट्रापी मुझे समझदार रखता है. And sanity, too, is a creative construct to be weaponized when there is nothing left to weaponize.

One could argue that when the law bans guns, they will still be used. When all guns are destroyed, there will still be daggers, and without daggers they will resort to scissors, kitchenwares, flammable material, ice picks. Food poisoning. Fingernails. Psychology. Socio-political fallacy. Hierarchy. Hedonism. Logic. Cowardice. Libido. The inverse of power.

Yes, just like that! no such fundamental truth! Those who starve have the right to reject the bitter taste of leftover food, for afterthought. My stomach churns on itself before an oh-so-beautiful getaway from an oh-so-tragic death. I’d cry out for help, “Mayday! Mayday! I’m stranded!” Appealing to none except the artistic expression of life itself. Shapeless patterns deviating from their original states. Shapeless patterns returning to their artistic (un)truth.

[spotlessvast]

I sit in the company of a sleeping cat in my bedroom. His breathing is steady and peaceful, yet I can't see his stomach move up and down past a three-foot distance, so I whisper his name and he flicks his tail.

He knows of sadness, he knows of anger, trauma, despair. He knows of love by action, love by feeling, love by means of family, happiness and joy, which are a clean room and nourishing dinners.

I sit in my bedroom stifling tears because I wonder if he knows how much I love him.

Words drift around to form fleeting thoughts — photons, just out of reach when they meet my eyes. Lit by dim neons is this lonesome heart in a bedroom, and it's not beautiful at all. Pretentious filmmakers would see this meltdown through a window and glorify it with eloquent lines, make my cat wake and trot onto my stomach, but —

He stays asleep. We are friends.

I've come to realize the worst feelings are not fear and torture, fear for one's life and being tortured by forces known and unknown. The worst feelings, truly, are those right under our noses, like:

Guilt, the guilt of love, the revelations of love as a mere action, but, oh, I love you so much, it hurts in my stomach. I could cook dinner for you, oh, who am I talking to? It's so dark outside... All the shops are closed, so tomorrow I will stock up on fresh fish for you.

The guilt of loving too much or not enough, reserving specialties for all and only meaning it twice, I'll show you what it's like to live in my world and I hope you'll show me yours too, please show me, please let me in, let me go from this charade and thank you for understanding my honesty, thank you for being honest with me, I love you. What if none of this is real? Why does it hurt so much? It feels good.

My cat opens his eyes to stifled crying and I stroke the back of his head, and he drifts off again to sleep. Even after his time is gone, I will love him as a brother, and I will show my friends and acquaintances my love for them too.

Have you eaten today? Tell me something new. Shutting yourself in all the time is bad for you, you know. Show me how you feel as a person. Thank you for being alive. I don't love you enough, despite tears rolling down my face overwhelmed with love. No matter how much I love you, nothing will ever be enough.

[spotlessvast]

unsent letter from a scientist to a miracle

3 years passed. Days continue to pass, and I find myself thrown into more situations that I struggle to adapt into. It was as you said; "Eventually, this will get in the way of things." To which I said: "We have plenty of time." And while we had plenty of time in the past, our timer is ticking menacingly. Someday, everything we obtain could be lost in the blink of an eye.

But that's not present day.

Even in present day I second-guess the reality of our situations each time my anxious hands reach for yours. Am I crossing boundaries? Are these boundaries waiting to be crossed? I know I'm waiting. It's almost pathetic...

I know by rationality that we exist in present day in a world where we can return to. I know by logic that there's consequences of being drunk on false disillusionment, and that falling back into a momentary paradise will eventually kill me. I know by logic, that, too, is an unwanted anxiety. It's best I pay no mind to such a thing.

Still, I catch myself enamored with the reality of you. Little by little, your graceful disposition reclaimed by common "everyday life" and each of its lovely imperfections. You pause at ridiculous and absurd comments. You come up with sentences as equally absurd, sometimes downright disturbing, but every word flows like that of a song. Until it doesn't. Until you pause and express that with a vague hand gesture.

I am insanely in love with you.

I wonder if I have the right to stare, if I have the right to think about you in this way. Days pass, and sometimes we don't have to use any words. Communication in the form of hazy eyes locking gazes is enough on those days. It's enough just to fall asleep next to you, waking up to sunlight or a thunderstorm and staying by your side through half-spoken trust.

It's enough for me, knowing that even if you can't cry, you had rested your head on my shoulder and asked how it feels to lose one's mind. And we stumbled around the dimly-lit apartment kitchen with our arms intertwined and legs crossing one another until our discussion over dinner made us forget what hurt so much in the first place.

After unraveling my own identity, I began sinking into a new mold. That's how it is in a world where no one should find us. As much as I'm captivated by the reality of life, between you and me, it's almost easier to love you wholeheartedly now than it would have been if we met just a day sooner.

[spotlessvast]

Shades of dawn, grant me sleep. Reach your hands across my back as darkness reaches noon, and grant me sleep. Whisper close and softly the messages brought on the wind, as if to sing me to sleep.

[spotlessvast]

omelet

Early tomorrow morning, someone will wake up early and walk to get groceries before the sun even rises. Wandering a town so quiet — returning to a home so quiet — broken and stirred by the click on the stove and the simmer of eggs.

Sunlight punctures holes through overcast sky. Delicate fingers strain on an egg’s shell, twin yolks falling one short of another to meet the eyes and stare.

In early morning, there is darkness diminished with street lights and skylines diminished with smoke clouds. When it comes for the world to wake up, the smoke clouds dissipate into an invisible haze at the shell of the atmosphere —

— Even in a pair of twins, one wakes up earlier than the other to see the sunrise.

Under the simmering can be heard a faint, threatening whisper:

“How considerate of you,

knowing your fate.” The eggs continue cooking until they turn white.

Morning passes by in ignorant bliss, occasionally broken by lonely disillusionment. Night covered in darkness, so surreal, yet the most “true” of any time of day, goes to sleep and makes room for a new vastness.

The vastness of day is hidden by pedestrian traffic congestion; Conversing passersby brush shoulders on one another’s shell and make a dent whether they know it or not —  whether they like it or not.

Breakfast is still warm.

Years ago, the womb of “one” and “oneself” was broken by a knife, one stillborn, and oneself given temporary warmth from the mother. Twin yolks falling one short of another meet the eyes and stare.

[spotlessvast]

chrysalis

I am the Panopticon of human decisions and the aftermath of such, entertaining myself with the thought until it cements me in place as an inside-out. Every stranger known by name and habit is a prisoner of mind — vigilant to consequence — or biting their fingers to numb the pain of jumping into its crossfire. One slip of the tongue, and another road opens up in the city. One sleight of the hand, and a spiral opens up in the road. An image awakens and takes a breath, while eating away are the maggots of consequence. (It’s not been a long time since then. They crawl up on me, too.)

“Hey, I only have enough time to stay until I can no longer hold my breath,” says I, the centerpiece of this disorder. Don’t threaten me with a misstep, says a finger-biting prisoner. All because of faulty judgement, our tower of Babel collapses, one domino at a time. Bullseye! Will this world of law finally collapse into fate’s hands? Once the Panopticon of human decisions, I want to be observed — for what it’s worth, guts and all. This is no tower of Babel at all, but a lighthouse on the shore swarmed by fireflies.

(Justice means Hypocrisy. The last righteous knight rides a chariot of transgression. I can no longer hold my breath, but somehow — )

[spotlessvast]

It’s past midnight; You are young and feverish in your sister’s bedroom while she sleeps on the foot of your mother’s bed. An hour ago, your mother offered to help turn on a movie to keep you distracted from the fear that lurks in the shadows of this home. It’s an old movie; A family-targeted animation from when she was your age, maybe a little older.

Quiet hums from the box TV layer behind the faint music and dialogue of the movie itself. You curl up with your blanket on your sister’s bed while the room is otherwise empty, and wonder why she gets the TV and you don’t. You are young and sick with something and a fever. You’ve never experienced the world alone past midnight. This room is a box, and the one constant of this room is currently elsewhere.

You’re too groggy to understand the plot of the movie, but you’re alert enough to understand that conflict puts you on edge. Even if it’s not real, the thought of something going wrong breaks your entire night, as if it wasn’t already on a different plane of consciousness to begin with. You reach for the controls on the TV and rewind to the beginning of the movie, this time so you can take in the plot. You are young, tired, and confused. A heart is not supposed to beat this fast when nothing is scary.

As fear is impermanent, you realize, so is comfort. You watch as a fuzzy line runs up and down the rest of the fuzzy TV screen. As you press your face up to the glass, each image divides itself into tiny dots of red, green, and blue. Instead of dialogue and music, only the faint hum of electricity accompanies the images. You don’t want to avert your eyes from the screen; Someone may have opened the door. It’s not your sister, because she’s sound asleep now in your mother’s bed.

You double-check to keep the door closed. You turn on a lamp, straining your eyes. It was hard to adjust to the brightness of the TV at first, too. You’re still feverish. The movie is still rewinding, and you realize that you were closer to the ending than the beginning. Alone in thought, you sit the remaining minutes out for it to rewind.

Feverish thoughts muddle together in an uneven kaleidoscope of unseen color. Some people die in their sleep when they’re sick, and knowing this fills you with dread. You wonder when it’ll be you. You are so young, growing into the age where you know that visceral fear for yourself. If you were to die, it would be at your own control, or so you hope.

A meteor could crash into the other side of Earth and throw the whole solar system out of orbit. You would die slow and cold in a matter of days. If sickness heals, surely this moment, too, is impermanent. Like this world, everything will return to its beginning at the end point.

The inside of the VHS slot clicks into place as the movie restarts. You are young, sick, and clouded with new and confusing thoughts. No longer afraid of what lurks in the dark, the lamp light and TV noises accompany you, drifting off to sleep. Whether or not you, your sister, or your mother will be next becomes a thought as impermanent as the others.

[spotlessvast]

sunset / riptide

As I stand in the shallow currents of lost pride and conscience I feel saltwater seep through the cracks of my skin. This evening, like all others, Earth spins to face the vast beyond the sun. It welcomes us. It swallows us into its endlessly exploding stomach, and in that, is the moon that draws the tide.

It’s a full moon; Empty, no one to populate it but a face of longing punctured into its bright side by ancient conflict. The moon pulls the shallow current up past my knees, and it runs behind me before racing back into the vastness beyond the sand.

For a moment, there is knowledge. In the next, is the contentment with lacking knowledge. I await the riptide to pull me in deeper and wash through the caves in my skull. Every flower in this garden, every artery, salted with the sea. What am I waiting for?

Over my shoulder on the other side of day, sunset fades into the seaside city. I ask the sun for answers, and it tells me wordlessly the answer lies further eastbound. So tomorrow, I will go. Tonight’s tide grasps at me now, crashing against my stomach and rolling off my back. It’s only a matter of time before I’m swallowed whole.

Still, by my side is the shadow of companionship that never fades. The sea is too high to see if that shadow’s feet are bleeding from salt and sand. Reaching for the hand that calls to me, I’m instead met with a firm tug from the ocean and swallowed whole.

It’s still shallow on the ocean floor.

Violet sunbeams filter through the layers of sea above me while the moon brings the day to sleep.

It’s breathtaking.

[spotlessvast]

currents

There is a quaint joy to be found in between each layer of stage makeup and exhibitionist dialogues. Passersby whisper their most honest confessions through stolen faces and scattered rose petals. Tonight’s festivities draw those faces into a current, swirling toward the center of town. So-called families and lovers of idiosyncrasy shed their woes under the limelight. I’m no less guilty of such thinking, even if I can recognize old acquaintances under the mask of drunkenness and freedom. As the unknown grips my wrist, I’m pulled into the night’s embrace with dizzy eyes. Question and Answer meet away from the crowd on a bridge. Sealing a vow with a kiss, skipping stones that soon will sink and become one with the river beneath them. Afterwards, the bustling crowd slows down to a stop, and a traveling salesperson pauses their travel for one slow morning. Secrets dissolve in the wind, never to be spoken by the same person again. Like smoke clouds on the horizon, the truth, too, disappears without a trace.

[spotlessvast]

shadowing

It came to me in a dream -- dim moonlight shining through the sheer curtains while cars rush down on the street. Drifting in and out of consciousness, I no longer have sight of what visited me. Sidewalks bustle the next day with passersby putting on neutral faces, bumping into each other. This is the very city that will kill me, and the very city that’s brimming with life and delusion at this moment. A single word passes through my mind.

Drinking acid puddles through straws opens up a door to a new plane. “Now hiring” signs on windows morph into a new message, as if the city pauses to stare me down. Now what?

From shadows, to shadows, the snake bites its tail

Every weight on one’s back comes from regret

I can’t remember this line, I can’t remember this line. I feel like diving head-first into a lake. It came to me in a dream -- the answer lies on the warmth of evening sun sinking into the mountains, waking up from a daze just in time to catch the last moments of daylight.

I will be shadowing again today.

Again, passersby and stationary people flash all-too-common expressions on their faces. Restaurants are packed on the weekends with all-too-ordinary families, consuming their all-too-delicious meals, that one day, they will tire from, too.

Is the truth not that I’ve fallen victim to a different kind of consumerism?

There’s a poem that does not exist. Written nowhere, and yet I insist on finding it somewhere. Locked up in my room for another day, I sink my teeth into whatever tasteless evidence I can find. What’s closed off, is but that “shadowing” I’ve been searching for.

[spotlessvast]

Say you want a decorative fish tank, but have no time to keep up with maintenance.

You get yourself a living fish and an identical mechanical fish in case the first one dies. (The onlookers will suspect nothing.) It swims in slow waters while tiny air pockets lock to its fins, reflecting rainbow light on its scales shining through the glass pane. And it swims in stasis in a habitat deader than its fleeting short-term memory. Eventually, there is a consequence as equally fleeting: One day you feed it too much, or not enough, or forget to fix the water filter, or— perhaps the cat reached into the fish tank and ate the poor thing.

You wind up the mechanical fish and drop him into the tank. Its batteries will last a lifetime— at least, a lifetime a fish should have— so you stop worrying about the onlookers' suspicious gazes. It swims around in stasis, aimlessly hiding behind plastic seaweed and off-colored rocks only to peek out again for a display showing. Do you pity it? Do you pity that which walks with no conscience? Onlookers can press their faces against the glass pane, mesmerized by the rainbow patterns reflecting off the mechanical fish's metallic scales. There is no consequence for pushing a bit too close, or tapping the glass a bit too hard. (Part of you wishes there was a consequence.)

You, knowing that fish is different than the one who died, still lose track of the difference sometimes. Is it sympathy, or is it selfishness? Say you want to make a decorative fish tank, but any living organism would be too much to take care of.

One day you find yourself drenched in June rain. What good is June if not for contrarian weather and disappointment? Aimlessly walking through apartment hallways toward the guts of the building, briefly meeting eyes with an onlooker from the yonder side of the glass pane. In your circumstance, there is a consequence for any action that is done by or to you. Perhaps those consequences cost you a life opportunity; Suppose you want to live on a lush field in the countryside, but all your favorite flowers are forever out of season. Any glimpse of them comes forth in the form of raining petals carried by eastbound winds. You settle for photography.

Do I pity you for living half-dead in a world even deader than the corpses we've strung along?

No—

It's not too late to make things more beautiful, while the rushing lake reflects the colors of the sky.

[spotlessvast]

in my head

how many times will i recite the same words

to the same ideas

to the same people

wasting time on strangers’ bedroom floors, but

all i can think about is wilting into you

birds feed their children mouth to mouth

but isn’t it less strange

or when reduced to outsiders, more strange

for lovers to exchange particles as equals?

nowadays i’m falling into consumption

the very same palatable universal sugar coated idea

idea of dreams

idea of love

it’s so shallow that it drowns me head-first under pressure

rather than sinking slowly in bliss

even so, the weight on my heart is new

and after that, i am flying

do you remember what that feeling is like?

i don’t want to die among flowers in vain

if i can’t wilt my head onto your shoulders