82 degrees, sunny, subtle breeze. i’m swaddled in purple and black to move with that breeze and to billow if a gust gets under the surface. i told her to come along because it was her last fighting chance to get a taste of summer. she didn’t come along, but that’s okay. i’m only on the ground for five and a half hours.

this trip is a confluence of contradictions and contraindications. doling out for a paid upgrade to first class but taking the 222 from BUR to hollywood & alameda. a flight of nearly a thousand miles for something i could - in theory - do a mile from home, albeit possibly at more expense. masking in transit but being worried about whether the doctor will take me seriously unless she can see my facial expressions.

it’s one of those days that the pain is worse in my toe and ankle joints than my finger and wrist joints. i’m glad i shifted my MTX to thursdays, instead of tuesdays. today. national wienerschnitzel day. maybe i’ll be able to stomach a couple of chili dogs on the way back to the airport. i don’t think i could do that on my dosage day. anyway, it’s a good midway stop between my appointment and the bus stop.

i debated how much i should pack for this trip. i keep joking to my friends — my socal ones — that there is no point in seeing me on the trip because i’m on the ground for less than five and half hours. i think about where i might need to stay in order to be fifteen minutes away. i look at my account balances and think about what favors i can call in. so much for seeing those socal friends.

my butt hurts from sitting in an uncomfortable wooden chair at alameda and ontario. i try to remember if i did my electronic check-in for my appointment. i have to arrive 30 minutes early. i always arrive early anyway. i don’t remember if i self-reported my diagnosis and meds. i thought this system was supposed to be epic. all i hear is the creaking of massive bureaucracies trying to find each other’s weak spots in the dark.

two thirtysomething white guys with unimpressive facial hair are talking behind me about their podcasts. of course they have podcasts. actually, one of them didn’t; he’s a youtube video essay producer. even though i’ve got hum blasting with noise cancellation on, i can still hear their prattle. “arm the dolls,” one of them says. i try to ignore them harder.

the girls aren’t here. one of them is having a fibro spike; another in greener pastures; another still just back to work. i remember how much i enjoy traveling alone while thinking about how lonely i get if i’m gone too long. i reassure myself i’m only on the ground for about five and a half hours. i’ll have been in transit altogether for closer to fifteen.

i decide to write out some notes to myself to remember what this is like. my therapist is going to ask, i fear, and while she knows this saga too well, it will probably be too easy for me to gloss over my details. i’m always five minutes late to therapy and it always takes me a few more to settle into the right headspace. at least this time i’ll have notes.

the sunlight filters through the branches and dapples my wrist. it feels warm under the breeze. i glance at the clock and see that it’s coming up on 45 minutes before showtime. i consider the words i am using and will use to describe myself, these thoughts, these senses, and these memories that brought me here. i wrap all of them snugly in corrugated cardboard, a series of still, red frames growing longer with every batch of footage.

a doleful heat sits
somewhere else—the crackling
intersections gathering
their own radiances—a dusky
heat, torpid amidst idleness—
a farmers' almanac shrinks
in its error—not a good year—
for corn—for tomatoes—for
the heavied nectarines—we want
them turgid and awaiting teeth
yet—the scythes remain idle
despite the promises of heat—
horizon—and endless acres

i try not to let you hear it. it being: thunks. the sputtering tension of a wire, vibrating. a trapped mosquito in the middle of the night. you know, i saw them all winter. it’s too warm. another bad sign welcoming me home.

i can’t tame the loudnesses but i try to keep them, mine, out of earshot. not buried, just muted. a palm against the strings. it becomes thunk after thunk. it’s like hiding a fart with a cough. it usually doesn’t work.

even though i am trying to keep these thunks mine they carry over. when we are together you feel my joints and stare at my face. you know the rhythm better than i do, sometimes: you find a gentle syncopation to answer back.

when we are apart the thunks spill over into the mail. i guess it’s like i have written new songs that i can’t wait to play you. but rather there’s a thunk of the heart knuckle and breath. my handwriting stays shaky.

i’m embarrassed. these are not your thunks. keeping them all to myself seems wrong. maybe i’m too selfish. maybe you like the rhythms and maybe you want to hear the songs when they’re still a pile of unpolished thunks.

the thunks are there for a reason. perhaps they need to be heard. they smooth out over time, i think. someone said: these letters are a pulse. you like to feel the thunk in my chest. the thunks keep time for this life.

to my almond @ the intersection:::
i saw you glistening
       it was 20 yrs from now &
        you had the same Haircut.

yourh  hair had gone white,
   your brow furrowed as alwayz
    from the endless boustrophedon of
      worry. yet, you are glistening.

a longin moon wanes andknows not of
   want or fear under thelast d ays;;
     and yet we still walk and sing
     and make moltenchocolate cake
     but

our souls are tired
  neither of us has slept bc it
  nas becum too expensive to do
  doso.  you apologize too much.

i love, not

        ________
        moonbeam
          (  )
        ________
        ________

times three: this is how our story begins
(not with a pang, but a whisper: the breath
moved through by diaphragm, vocal cords splayed,
echoing four or five words to save our souls).
a brow furrows itself gilded by its reflection,
an uncommon referent gliding between hands and
pursed lips. horses in grass, a lilac cosplayed,
opening its petals for late-season pollinators:
irregular sweat bees, an industrial hummingbird,
all out seeking october’s nectar. a kitchenmaid
stance: night shading an open, expectant mouth,
eager to separate loculi and suck seed and pulp.
who could forget the moments of mirrored luck
and draped limbs, limning a sought-after tone:
the whirr, fast forward and rewound, replayed
as if to find the same tidal rock to cling to.
new lunar shoulders beaming through branches
of the almond grove, itself awakening from a
long winter. the longest spring amidst the
shortest daze awaits on the horizon, unafraid.

i.

      o we're moved i             love
                    Venus, i
              could be like fighting words.
parsing out some very specific insults.  really
             the mind in a way,            hard in
        person            on a person   it can
exacerbate the                            handle on
what is                             , work
         like something gets hot to the point of
    , I can't ignore that
shortness to the moment. It's biting.

      can    you know     challenging
people and Venus              the engagement they're
in.            a hard                          start
             a challenge and we end           that
challenge.     we     again,
                        are going to be attacked
                     some kind of hot poker         's
                get heated.            get parsed
                   to understand
to                                               feel
particular love
                              , still retrograde —
                     the one who can put information
together                                    sextile
Finally,                                articulating
something martian
                                        two are linking up,
                         , a helpful redo,
     of something:
                of whatever it is that we are
backtracking about.

ii.

      this New Moon is         slippery
                                it's sitting in
                               scrutiny
                                     slowly
sitting in        a vibe that is like, No,    do it
again                    already           Virgo
already          i       like a moment where we're
having to adjust           having to be really meticulous
about what      we're wanting,  how to do it, and
                          one layer of it

                is
       our forever hype queen. We love a square
                I'd rather have a trine, but I'll take a square.
                              breath of

opposition,       a very scouring



really      maximized
                                      perfect      opposition 
with                              a vibe               like,
"No,               No,                    No,
go there. No, you     do your homework. No,
clean  our         No, по, по
    New Moon.

                                        that kind of
moment              a really good time to get
    yourself         a really good time    be
  those inner voices that                 thrive and
grow. Mistakes are good to make.
                                    we need to actually

                                                    move
into           expertise, and that's how we develop
             Real confidence is            to be in a tricky,
sticky moment                         , where we fuck , and we
       say "Oh,                          I did that  
               better. Great.                        Now I'm
               correct. Now
               
                       Now                     . Let's go. Let's
incorporate it. Let's digest it."

       the digestion s               we want
are     morsels of correction                              ,  and
       we                                       let ourselves off
the hook                                                   . Like,
literally,                  We are             supposed to

keep doing the thing that we know is right to do.

   there's a lot about right and wrong with
                              that binary thinking and I want
  to 
 be the best student in         class.          the teacher. 
You are                            we are        going for
perfection      eek. We are                    the best
student: being able to take                         them, sit
with them, mull them over, ask questions, be curious and be
willing to be the best           we can possibly be

                      in the mix of this New Moon.

to be read top-down and/or bottom-up

boots sigh, dust-  
    rags erase thick scar-  
    work, interlacing  
    lore and evidence.   

curve finds half-  
    light, finger smooths lamp-  
    black in tan furrows,  
    spine bowed from spasm.  

knees splay, clock-  
    wise gears clink in wrist-  
    bone wound to bursting —  
    main spring ruptures forth.  

mouth wide, come-  
    drunk, speechless, seeks moon-  
    stone around onyx,  
    finds its claw setting.  

hands like heat-  
    lamps bear rust-red brick-  
    works, spreading mortar  
    along my insides.

i felt the sun pour down into molten bronze on my shoulders: casting me into an unlikely statue. you, the sculptor, could intuit how my form would take to metal. the crucible emptied itself. as you cooled these familiar, imperfect shapes, you saw a channel for every sinew, wrinkle, and pockmarked bit of flesh. these channels became another set of constellations bearing fruit as a future zodiac. you said i was born under the sign of the feather (hammer rising): lightness and gravity, twin yet unlikely forces that worked in concert. motionless, i agreed with you as bead upon bead pooled into my navel, ears, and nailbeds.

the pull of each of them ever expanding, distances became immeasurable on a galactic scale. the speed of light became an irrational footnote. single, simple glyphs were scattered throughout the electromagnetic spectrum, arriving in whatever sequence they demanded, rather than perfectly ordered messages. these were our own peculiar velocities: the smoothness of our own bodies in sympathetic orbits. i watched red turn to blue and hover in violet. glyphs became syllables, turning into words, phrases, and verse. you read them aloud to me in the same voice i remember: tender as a nutcracker’s teeth finding the point on a walnut’s shell to free the flesh inside.

i solidified again in the cold of space. flares licked my cheeks and nose as i got closer to the sun. another sculptor, another forge, finding new channels. the new constellations remained. venus was in the elbow, you said, calling out countless new names for all the unpredictable heavenly eccentricities that stood before us. i put my arms around your stomach and told you when i thought the sun would rise next. you grinned and asked me when it would set. we both knew it would only reach past the horizon when we stopped wanting it in the sky.

agate in the front seat and she is driving. her hair is long and she is fat. she carries her lunch in a bag. she thinks that the music should be louder.

lowercase agate in the back of the car, doing nothing. her hair is long and her headphones are loud. she hides behind the door. she carries her self small. she is hungry.

agate in the front seat and she starts asking questions. her hair is long and her confidence is fat. she carries her heart in a bag. she thinks she should be driving slower.

lowercase agate in the back of the car, trying to get away. her hair is long and her music is fast. everything is far and moves too slow. she carries her eyes on a plate.

agate in the front seat and she’s making a list. her hair is loud and she is far. she carries the one to bed too much. she thinks that you should listen. she is thirsty.

lowercase agate in the back of the car, trying to disappear. her hair is long and her heart is fast. she carries her mysteries. everyone is too far. she wants new eyes.

agate in the front seat and she is braking. her hair is fast and her voice is loud. she stops safely and opens the door. she carries her belongings on the way out.

lowercase agate in the back seat, yearning to drive. her hair is long and her affect is flat. she carries on and on and on because everyone is off for the summer. she needs a “you.”

agate out the front seat and opening the back door. her hands are fat and her heart is full. she carries a blade and hears the music. she needs you more than last time.

agate and lowercase agate in the backseat, trying not to argue. their love is long and their hearts are fat. they carry the weight of the other. they need you to come home.

at fifteen, going around half-cocked, still unsure, wandering, she found herself in the back of the video store trying to find a copy of ~something~. she picked up the case with you on the cover. it was then that she felt something quiver inside her. most of her friends would say that it was a crush. they couldn’t understand. she got home, smelled the lavender, walked in, sat on the couch, and put in the tape. she got brought into a world far enough from her own, but not entirely.

and that’s when you appeared to her again: stringy haired, all gas station jackets, slouch, smoke, and swagger. it was not like looking in a mirror. no, it was not not like looking in a mirror either. at fifteen, you illuminated a path for her. at fortythree, with “bible silver corner” drifting through the dark purpled theater, you brought her home. on stage, still standing with slouch, smoke and swagger. she knew then that it was fate that brought you in orbit. you were a teacher, a model, a hero to a girl who didn’t know who she was yet.

you never signed up for this: too many dreams of too many girls, placing their imprimaturs on your life. this one, no different than any other. sad, lost, confused. trying to find her voice. a voice like yours, smoky polished topaz, hazy like the horizon, gentle but unhalting. a voice in a choir of angels, riding on the backs of rockets, getting more and more lift through the atmosphere to get them and the girls like her home to the kingdom of God. this is your voice, itself slackened, slouched, smoking and swaggering.

she heard you tell her, and the world, that you were going out to get some scrump. she didn’t blame you, get in your way, want you to leave. she knew you would be back, some time, somehow, with a bundle of flowers at your back (violets, pansies, a few daisies and parrot tulips). the flowers weren’t for her, but they’d sit on her table just the same. you’d sit with her, sipping chamomile tea with lavender honey and whiskey, and prepare once again to sing her to sleep.

a blank-faced chair catches the glow of soft light from above. its bare seat, awaiting its chance at comforting lumbosacral curves, also shimmers, upholstered in azure pleather. asterisms reveal themselves through its tight stitching, their names pealing through the vacuum of space, a carillon ringing in an empty sky. the chair looks forward onto warm, angular wood (firm with false pliancy from radiant heat), midnight walls supple with preserved moss invite anonymous, unfamiliar, tender hands. it respires, sighs, looks out across at the upright chair, awaits return of its occupant, longs for the refrain of the chorus from the speakers.

the song starts the same the last time it was on the radio, speaker facing the corner of the bar you stand at patiently, brow furrowed, waiting for glassware containing healthy pours. the cold of space reverberating the shine of the winter hexagon: Pollux awaits Castor. Aldebaran awaits Porrima. i rap two knuckles on the table twice thinking of each pair, skin stinging with splinters. Helen awaits Clytemnestra. one more rap, one more splinter. you turn away from the corner, glidepath icy, confident, holding stemware in each hand like single calla lillies to grace a marble ledge. impossibly alabaster against the midnight wall.

upon your arrival: the chair sighs, not the wall, its ultimate purpose complete as new clusters of stars reveal themselves. we nestle deeply as each of us escalate mutual confessions and absolution. more peals, this time resounding chimes of laughter, reverberating through The Tower of the Winds, illuminating its meridian lines. we observe and speculate about where we might predict the new ways the coma glows as it approaches the sun. sublimating the hairs over our hearts, our wild tails spin with increasing volatility. we continue rotating in until we leave our seats in osculating orbit.

there is a brook by the side of the road. the first time you came to the countryside you had me wash the garments in it. you picked up a lisp and a nutcracker and told me i was next. tutting and clucking, you wound the clock in your carriage 12 hours and 3 minutes backwards, hissing «c’est inc(r)oyable». there is a walnut tree by the brook and i lean against it not to slouch. there is a day in the countryside and the the woodsman comes to measure the tree. the wood is dark and will line the inside of the carriage you are now sitting in. the husks on the ground are softening under the woodsman’s boots and phenols invade the breeze as he clomp clomp clomps his tape around the trunk. he pulls the tape tight and snaps it. you see me slamming your dress against a rock again and tell me to be more careful. these rocks are smooth, i protest. they will not get you clean. the moon is not smooth, you argue back. the nutcracker is sitting at the edge of the carriage. the woodsman is scratching his back on the trunk. the tree sways and branches detangle. the nutcracker looks up, up, up, and knows a lust for the meats inside the fruit. you are looking away and i sneak a sip of ratafia from the flask in my waist coat. it is now thursday in god’s world. the nutcracker looks at you and chomps your finger. your scream startles the woodsman, now lost in the brook, i lost in your dress, and carried downstream. you throw the nutcracker out the carriage and it runs away. i am still laundering out the winestains.

the road they is moving beneath are tired legs the fast sun she already lost itself down below. there is the rattle of the lanterns on the wind and cool dew on the grasses husks cracking and a tall unlit stand of fruit trees(can’t quite make out). murk: i have not eaten herly and one tree they is laden with a full crop. my eyes would widened(she is not giving enough fruit [a corn’s weight worth]). the grass she is up to my ankles and touching my hem and inseam. greened stain on vulgar linen and the stand becomes an orcherd lined w/ greened husks and greening nettle leaves: she already for harvest. the nettle they is waiting to be grasped theyly they is already stinging palms and bared greening soles of feet. the trees she is only one one tonight up past tops of heads and they is grasping that greened black moon saying always. she moon is stinging to her mare ass to tender always and they to tranquil always. my stomach she is rumbling and she need the greener fruit hiding by the moon. my hands they is shaking and beating the side of that tall tree: they is saying trees don’t fall for old wives tails but my tail she beats the side of the tree to. lanterns rattle again they is waking up and is the owl waiting at a rathole or am i just trying to open a can of beans since her fruit is hanging high. their eyes she is grasping harder and stirring or churning something above my head(they is nervy and unsure). the fruits they is sighing and clatter down like silver they wood have eyes in the tree. the eyes she seeing are fruit. would eyes she feeling can open her. the her she is feeling a can opener they say its not to rusty yet and to keep the arm steady. my eyes open and my mouth she is full of iron and walnut and they is now shaken my fruit her down past her moon into they nettles at my toes. the trees she is pouring a cordial into my mouth and they is warning of wind and rain in her eyes they need to be filled to. the cans she have opened and they is having her feast on it and we are still walking shaking them and feeding her. the sun she is sticky and the moon she is smooth and cool and they shake the grass to sooth her lips they loudened hair and we all greened.

i long to be wholly certain, just to be
certain of how we all will thrive, just to be
certain of a beautiful tomorrow with electric skies.
certain of near-limitless energy within us:
that we nudge cherry trees into bloom and fruit,
that we heave the sun and moon into their places,
that we chart the exact trajectories of our parts
meting out and merging into a certain whole.

how does imperfect information build certainty?
through tacit models or conceptual knowledges?
as stepladders for real beliefs or true feelings?
using fictionalized observations or keen histories?
on a dais of well-considered entropy or absolute order?
i’d sooner split atoms with my lashes knit shut
than to be wholly certain that a fading map’s
creases are riverbeds, cherry orchards or gravel roads.

we are told, “here is one hand and here is another”:
certain truth that the external world must exist.
hands can hold fists and other hands back, inside
and together. but what exists outside the hands?
inside them lies a potential to fracture reality.
tunneling through us as breaking waves on strings,
fusing our bodies while splitting our cores:
a holy certain stone rending the cherry in two.

stalks not yet knee high, i shift through your brace roots, making
feathery steps in an alien, windswept field.
crop unready for market, gusts dare shatter
a future before certain maturity.
singing, i close my eyes and listen –

distant crackles among efflorescent, long purple
tassels, silently weeping their unseen pollen.
silk chatters its sweet odors of sanctity:
stigmatic pilgrims demanding holy
communion and metaxenia.

let your new tillers flourish, superstitions be damned;
let them steady you to high season. soft tendrils
vining upon you find your nodes a staircase.
let my leaflets climb your shivering length,
longing for reach behind your sweet ears.

we turn off the side street in slippery silence. perspiration pools at the back of my knees, rendering the languor of the august night corpulent with promise. i sigh furtively as we approach the intercontinental, towering above us from our south. i hear the friezes along its eighth floor come to life as our steps grew louder. the north side awakens first, priest intoning an incantation towards the heavens upon an otherwise unlistening city. the white bull moans its hoarse, final breath in sacrifice, looking at me pleadingly eye to eye, voice speaking to me in a language both ancient and familiar. i know, unexpectedly, that the bull was asking me if i was ready for this moment. the blood drained from its limestone-hued body, crimson liquid awaiting mixture with grapes and earth to consecrate the ground on which we stand. there are times when you know that you are ready, and this is one when i am deeply not.

we glide down the mile, pedicabs nipping our heels, our pace quickening as the building came into view. i sense my pulse between the joints of my fingers grow faint and unpredictable as i look upward again. streetlights turn into a plurality of diffuse nebulae rotating around me, each containing their own uncertain future: transformative auroras, star death, galactic collisions, all approaching at speeds impossible to ascertain through blueshift. the magistrates and architect in the western frieze awaken this time and study this change in my perception, the ruler slumbering yet always awaiting their counsel. the guards on twelve hold their swords at the ready, resting their their thick beards on the pommels, observing both of our movements: yours with cool grace, mine with clumsy eagerness and utter confusion.

the revolving door of the lobby notices my hesitation and proves reticent to welcome me. you gasp as you titter while ignoring its deep stubbornness, choosing to grease its flanking portals with limpid praise. they unfurl themselves open at your touch and remain ajar for me, patiently gesturing in the bull’s language out of time. you already know that we both belong inside. sky at my back, the doors nudge me inward, trying to explain that i belong here, too. i am so afraid of losing my bearings that i close my eyes and count the steps past the threshold, listening for the echoes of your footfall across the mosaic. you pull your hands to my head, turning it upward when we stop and whispering that this is what you wanted to show me. your fingers explode with luminosity across my brow and temple. i can feel myself collapsing within the lobby.

we ease ourselves onto the mosaic in the atrium, which radiates its coolness into our hips. my eyes finally open and trudge their way upward, using cool black, ultramarine, and azure as footholds as we ascend to its uranian blueness. the dome above us both sends us messages in impenetrable symbologies expressed as faint twinkles we struggle to even see. as our vision adjusts, the false sky’s messages become recognizable. they are same as those of the heavens just past the doors, but sent faster than light. as they pass through the atrium’s vacuum, we realize they are tuned to our bodies' resonant frequencies. we begin to vibrate, stammering these missives to each other in the tongue of the bull and the doors. we are no longer just here: we are the medium for messages between our future selves. we lie back, held in position by the gravity of our intersecting arms, reciting the name of each constellation we see in and out of time.