thetableintheback

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[id: a film photo of a living room with a large window at sunset. rectangles of light are cast on the left side wall. a dark green couch and a low coffee table with an incomplete jigsaw puzzle on it are in the foreground. the lighting is low and warm. end id]

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Ocean waves made of maps by Matthew Cusick

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garlic breath by Rhiannon McGavin

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I’M GOING BACK TO MINNESOTA WHERE SADNESS MAKES SENSE

by Danez Smith

O California, don’t you know the sun is only a god if you learn to starve for him? I’m bored with the ocean I stood at the lip of it, dressed in down, praying for snow I know, I’m strange, too much light makes me nervous at least in this land where the trees always bear green. I know something that doesn’t die can’t be beautiful. Have you ever stood on a frozen lake, California? The sun above you, the snow & stalled sea — a field of mirror all demanding to be the sun too, everything around you is light & it’s gorgeous & if you stay too long it will kill you & it’s so sad, you know? You’re the only warm thing for miles & the only thing that can’t shine.

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LUCILLE CLIFTON

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[text description:

Aubade

I woke up with so much love for you

It doesn't matter where I am

I am making eggs

The sun is warming my just-shaved head

like your hand when sometimes

it rests there /end description]

aubade by yanyi

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after i get so jealous of euthanized dogs - jude francis

[text:

the kind of death that someone else apologizes for

where i am not to blame, poor sweet thing, it's for the best and

it's just so cruel

to make anyone go on like this,

hurting and hurting and hurting and

it's okay if i have to go now, and everyone will understand,

really it's the kindest thing to do

because who could stand to watch this anymore,

the joke isn't funny anymore, hasn't been for a while now

so i don't care if i am given pity or mercy

and i don't know if there is a difference.]

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after i get so jealous of euthanized dogs - jude francis

[text:

the kind of death that someone else apologizes for

where i am not to blame, poor sweet thing, it's for the best and

it's just so cruel

to make anyone go on like this,

hurting and hurting and hurting and

it's okay if i have to go now, and everyone will understand,

really it's the kindest thing to do

because who could stand to watch this anymore,

the joke isn't funny anymore, hasn't been for a while now

so i don't care if i am given pity or mercy

and i don't know if there is a difference.]

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it is a wet tuesday afternoon, or perhaps evening - it is the time of year when the two blur together

when the light lingers long enough to drive home from work before the sun sets

only to eat dinner under the cover of darkness, when it is unclear when the day has ended and the night has begun.

either way, i am crying and thinking of things that do not bear thinking about

like my friend janet, who survived cancer twice and who died in her sleep shortly after i told her i would see her next week,

but this is not what i am crying about, or at least,

not only this.

weak grey light filters past the blue velvet curtains, which my mother bought secondhand, and which are sagging over the window and i'm sure

this is a metaphor for something.

it has been a little over a year since the doctor told me it wasn't cancer, but it wasn't anything he could cure either.

this may well be what i am crying about but i have decided that i have more important things to do now, like fixing the curtains and deciding once and for all how dark it must be

for something to be over.

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no morning colder than the first frost / no friends closer than the ones we've lost

Rain in Soho by The Mountain Goats + birds on a telephone wire

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do yall know about this

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Anne Carson, from "Tag"

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two weeks ago i planted fig pits into my palm and nothing happened for the longest time until nowadays whenever i high five someone or shake hands it tastes of fig behind my teeth

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[text description:

& so yes,

there is an ocean between us the length of my arm & I have built nothing for you that can survive it

& from here I am close enough to be seen but not close enough to be cherished

& from here, I can see every possible ending before we even touch. /end text description]

*

hanif abdurraqib

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from steps by frank o’hara 🫶🏻