Archive for 2026

Oct 2, 2026

sometimes i feel like a handful of pebbles at the bottom of a jar full of water

i talked to someone i love today. (sometimes

i feel like a handful of pebbles at the bottom of a jar full of water. 

perhaps a little boy found an empty pasta jar in the lakehouse cupboard,

left the back door ajar in his hasty barefoot run toward the stream,

splashed into the water and plunged eagerly his arm under the surface 

to collect the pebbles at the shore, glistening. 

that became me, those little rocks. now we sit in his lap, 

dressed in stubborn adhesive and 

half-peeled paper, boasting half of MARINARA.

the boy presses his face to the glass. we say hi to his distorted eyes,

by way of a shimmy and muffled clinks.)


usually, i think that i am getting closer to knowing myself.

i'm getting older, which is a thing. i feel more grounded –

another thing. there is a cohesion, and roughly i adhere to it,

not by principle but by a proclivity outside of my control,

a gravitational pull that returns me to myself

in floating moments of contradiction. 


unless, of course, a convincing voice – a familiar voice –

asks me to reconsider.

(or: it must be that today the boy brought his treasure to class.

he held the jar between his hands, tightly, as the school bus jolted 

over a speed bump. the pebbles lifted, floated tentatively upwards, 

bringing loose bits of dirt along with it,

altogether making a feeble leap towards the mouth as if to escape. 

in the hallways between classes, we were jostled 

dizzy beyond recognition.) to reconsider – 

suddenly i am not sure of my wholeness, of what keeps me together in this

container of a body other than lazy convenience or divine coincidence.


sometimes i wish to have bigger rocks, more decisive rocks – fewer, but

heavier, unmovable. they wouldn't float upwards like mine do

when someone to whom i entrust myself shakes me in such a way 

that the pebbles return to different places – 

and i cannot say that they have changed me, nothing compositionally has changed – 

but i am unsettled, i become a stranger, 

i must acquaint myself again.


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Jul 13, 2026

another slice of draft that would otherwise not see the light of day

i have, like i imagine many others might, a ritual of undressing at the end of each day. having lived alone for several years i’ve come to appreciate the sanctity of my privacy, the midnight treat after a long evening. as much as i love spending time with people — laughing myself open with them, peering into their lives and egos, bumping shoulders and feeling inspired — my introversion awaits me eagerly each night, quiet and patient for my eventual return to self.

it goes something like this: i enter my apartment after a social evening out. with the click of the apartment door that i close behind me, my cluttered impressions of the day’s events begin to fall slowly into place. as i walk through the musty entryway of my solitude, little moments float downwards from the ceiling like autumn leaves against a breeze – that conversation was quite fruitful, that person was enjoyable and inspiring, that other person i’m starting to think maybe feels uncomfortable with me. the deeper i go into my apartment (and the further from the door, the outside world) the more i curl my senses inwards, dissociating from my physical body which i dispatch into the rote routine of end-of-day: taking off my jacket, laying my keys and wallet onto the counter, throwing my socks in the hamper. my mind attends scrupulously to the emotional collage of the evening, and by the time i am brushing my teeth in my pajamas, the reflection i see in the bathroom mirror is not of myself but of a sculpture of myself. the sculpture is vibrant and opaque and provocative, made of wet foliage, red and yellow and green, inexpressible through language. when i look down, my body remains the same flesh and bone, but it does not feel that way when i walk; i feel my leaves fluttering like scales. this follows me to the end of the evening. i carry it with me into my dreamworld. atop my bed i am clump of leaves, sometimes well-stitched and comforting, other times just a heap waiting to be scattered by a strong gust.

in my last moments of the day i hear the quiet events outside my window. the public bus hisses to a halt, then wheezes itself forward after a pause. the crosswalk chirps “wait” to an midnight pedestrian. cars breeze by with the sound of tires against wet pavement. my eyes close within the cradle of nighttime seattle and the fading echoes of my tireless thoughts.

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