so is that it? will i never see your face again? and just yesterday you had smiled at me like all was well. did you know then? could you foresee it?

i’m amazed at my own solubility.

i sometimes dream of telling them all that i’m actually a machine, but then i remember love and what that felt like before the gears and wires were placed within.

i saw a sunflower walking before me… skipping, actually. it smiled and skipped away.

sometimes when i think hard, i gain a small bit of insight, like the universe contracting into something tangible… but then i confess that i am just a normal human, and it subsides. the mind cannot handle too much reality.

sometimes i leave strange pieces of paper in various places, hoping it will lead to correspondence. it never has, so i make believe.

one time i negociated with a butterfly. they are treacherous tyrants, who hold caterpillars captive. everything you know is a lie.

those are things that exist here on earth. i don’t know where you live or why you can’t see them. maybe it’s easier for an outsider, who can’t select which sense to attend to.

[PLEASE DELIVER TO (IPCA) ARGENTA MAJORIS, HELVETICA, MARS, 2084, IPCA INSURED-56331]

my eyes are metal. i have to focus to not look at him; consciously resist. should i exhale my concentration, he is a magnet, my eyes are metal

when technology creeped out of its cave, humanity tried to define it through nature. trains were giant slugs, looms were spider webs.

metamorphosis? it’s a virus attacking a computer system that is ready to shut down. technology. now i comprehend.

we are all cyborgs now anyway. we can melt into the soil, being encapsulated by ivy, and we can be hooked up to wires and scaned through networks.

but in the end, there’s only so much you can give.

is that what criticism feels like? resistance, acceptance, resistance, acceptance at war?

sometimes i am so fulfilled.

like the other day i was thinking about words and language. you’re looking at each of these words, letters, led scratches on paper basically, and you hear a voice in your mind, correct? how do we succeed in representing sound with vision? the letters look like they sound, don’t they, but we’re conning ourselves so marvelously!

can you read russian or chinese? the symbols don’t make sounds, do they? we’ve trained our brains to interpret strange markings when the sounds we make are so primordial. this world spins with verbal air circling around it.

how did we pick which characters go with which sounds?

imagine you are a lexicographer; where would you begin? there are no letters and you must assign vocalizations to led.

what does the sound of water look like? anger? love? catharsis? some feelings cannot be assigned.

what if there was no such thing as writing? would the world be dark? would our linguistic sounds hold more meaning? would they swirl around us virulescently?

pieces of cake. yummy yummy ice cream cake.

it’s a strange feeling when someone tells you to say goodbye to your family. there i stood, following a man who stopped to say, “um, you can… say goodbye here.” those words went straight to my heart. say goodbye? to my mother and father and brother?

especially paper. i deal with it a lot. i run my hand across it’s surface, pick up a wooden pencil, sense the interface between paper and pencil. it’s all dead forest. lifeless, lifeless tree.

when you walk into a forest, though, everything is breathing. put your hand against the soft bark and feel it sink in. feel your feet embed themselves in the vines and moss. currents of air encircle you, daring glances, slide past, touch your face.

my room is made out of wires. wires and dead forest. the wires crawl under my bed, tangle together in my closet. my desk, my shelves are cold, dead. i grip them, scratch their surfaces, while the wires laugh.

then the wires take hold of my arms; bind them behind my back. crawl up my spine, wrap themselves around my neck. the forest is far away, not even the dead wood in my room can carry the sound to it.

and i remain searching for their relationship. i remain searching. i remain.

i came back the next day. they asked why i didn’t die. i told them that i couldn’t die on a wednesday. i would die on thursday.

i came back on thursday. told them i was a ghost. that became a nickname. none of us knew anyone’s real name, but we were family.

i walked down a dark street, slave songs ringing in my ears.

i remember germany. i turned my face to the forgotten lake, the gloaming a miasma of ghosted rage.

beautiful how we whispered words to the wind, to whisper to the other. reminiscent of times we whispered directly into each others ears, encapsulated by darkness. he listened to my loving cynicism (i wasn’t always like that- i believed in fairies before THEY came along).

side note: for a long time, “christian” meant “person who doesn’t believe fairies are real (because God NEVER creates mysterious things)/believes they are demons (naturally!)/believes everything is an evil demon (especially things they can’t understand)/really doesn’t believe anything, for a people whose bible is filled with ghosts and zombies and unexplainable occurences.”

i got lost in a cemetary. the moment i saw the tombstones before me, my ipod decided to tease me by playing a song called “ghosts”. i wish it were a joke. i knew that God saw me in that moment. he was so tangible, not like olorun- the god of so many brazilian and african religions, who is unattached and unconcernced when it comes to humans. he melted the ice around my skin until we were in thermal equilibrium, and he kept touching me! i didn’t flinch. i didn’t quiver.

thailand. long, narrow boats filled with wooden dolls. mountain shrines, emerald palaces, wind, boys playing in a river. i remember having my hair touched unrelentingly. honey comb, sticky fingers, polaroid camera, silk dress, monitor lizard the size of a dragon, cave full of bats.

sometimes i feel like i’m 100 years old. how do i justify these experiences? how do i justify them?