first published here, still relevant 9 months later

you were sure one of us would get bored, because love is an underground tunnel, the train malfunctions we call communication just proof that affection permits one to overlook mistranslation.

the eternal question: why I didn’t respond to your letter, their missives, any sort of correspondence that requires sustained effort. I am familiar with the sensation of giving up. I am familiar with the standard protocol, to hand you a pretty fucking answer like I didn’t know yet which part of the sunlight to attribute your collar bones to. like I didn’t think the margin of your spine could be filled with enough notes profound in depth and warmth. the gutter of your mind littered with balled-up music sheets like fists.

listen, I’ve been learning that the body has to break in order to grow, and that one has to push past the point of failure in order to burst into being. all bodybuilders know this. the ponderous form must be broken down, not damaged, but shattered apart. the boundaries of the body are the body itself. in that vein, the division between mind and body is a lie. put descartes to sleep. put your lips to my wrist. there we go. again I am insisting you smell the way warm bedside lighting makes shadows. instead of a balcony looking out onto cobblestones we have colour-adjustable LEDs and grilled windows throwing their curtain rails off like overbearing pursuers. instead of holy verses we have your tongue as testimony to the idea that there is no self. the figure of the subject is subject to falsehood. I am tasting you tasting me tasting you in this endless loop of neurostimuli and barely-concealed bite marks. where does one experience end and the other begin.

trace me the boundary between my ego and my eagerness to please.

I’ve been on edge now for slightly more than half a year and the reason I want things from myself that I cannot give is a familiar tragedy. this morning I asked the cards about a month from now and it showed me the Fool in all his glory. there is nothing to me so hopeful as zero point, event horizon. for years when I was younger all my fantasies revolved around an omnipotent reset button. we all expect things of ourselves, even if it is only to respire and put one foot in front of the other without randomly falling over. I know I’m not like that, especially to people I profess to care about, but like all centipedes, that prickly feeling requires effort to capture. I know I’m not like that, but I get the sense I’m tugging at my own sleeves and showing myself albums of family holidays I barely recall. god I miss being fiercely protective. I miss going up in a blaze of tenderness so fearless it was as if the world had never heard of loneliness, human fallibility, or chronic back problems.

god I miss knowing which number to call home.