You are unsure of where the guilt comes from. Do they hand it to you mid-conversation? Do you conjure it inside of yourself like smoke? Do you find it on the street like a discarded soda bottle or Sunday coupons, sullied and stepped-on and yet you still pick it up, still claim it as yours? …
life as told by seven unrelated facts
My thoughts have been scattershot lately. Ribbons of this. Shreds of confetti of that. I wish I had more of coherence, of weighty substance to write, but that's not where I am at. So here's this. This is what I've been thinking about lately: 1. Swell sharks---Cephaloscyllium ventriosum---live along the Californian coast. They are called …
liminal spaces
Liminal comes from the Latin word limen, meaning threshold. Threshold, among other things, means the level or point at which you start to experience something, or at which something starts to happen or change. It's like this: You are water. Blue and blameless. Ebbing and flowing in a tide pool. Heat begins to build, and you, beautiful …
days the color of a monkeyface eel
A week and a half ago we asked our boss if we could purchase 1,000 carrion beetles. My coworker had found a monkeyface prickleback carcass and was interested in harvesting the delicate bones. Obviously, beetles were the way to go. That was a week and a half ago, but it feels like a different epoch. …
tips for surviving the end of the world
First off, it's not the end of the world. Secondly, let me tell you a little about me. I've woken up with a headache every day this week from stress. My anxiety is this hazy, inarticulate thing that clouds my senses, leaving me lying in bed curled up in my sleeping bag, worrying about my …
night walks
I've been taking a lot of night walks lately. Skulking, I call it. Disappearing into the Californian night, leaving my messy room, messy mind behind. I walk without light as often as possible. Sometimes I run. The town I live in is a wealthy geriatric place, million-dollar homes landscaped with succulents and neatly polished rocks, …
perfect moments
one It is early in the season and my night walks have not yet become habitual. This is the first time on one of those walks that I am not alone. We are walking and the fog is rolling in, covering the stars slowly like a blanket being pulled over bed sheets. It feels like …
a metaphor of gulls
I've only written scattered thoughts recently---lines jotted down in class, phrases saved on the notes app in my phone, scraps of words all clustered together in an attempt to describe a particular hue of blue. It's one of those phases. Gathering wandering exploring excavating. You know how it is. Several people have sent me letters …
The Loneliness of Jupiter
“Lonely, ain't it? Yes, but my lonely is mine. Now your lonely is somebody else's. Made by somebody else and handed to you. Ain't that something? A secondhand lonely.” --- Toni Morrison, Sula I was sitting on my sister's couch when I found the picture of Jupiter. This picture of Jupiter. I don't remember where …
Nebraska
You are driving through Nebraska. Nebraska has always been a drive-through state for you, a large expanse of field and sky, a doormat to the mountains, to your destination. You have no vivid memories of driving through it the other three times prior, only the vague smoke of anticipation, of wanting to be somewhere else. …
People in Parks 