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part one I slowly eased onto the coolness of the laminate countertop, bracing myself for the feeling on my bare skin. Sitting there in the corner emphasized the emptiness of the boy’s kitchen, of his whole apartment. There were no table, chairs, or couch, all personal belongings were packed up to be moved. The counters, fridge, and sink were against the far wall, opposite the front door. It was like everything important in the space was pushed against the wall there, compact and out of the way. The open space in the middle was the boy’s dance floor. He played his music while I would watch him dance from my perch on the counter. I’d been told to wait while he cooked dinner; he always refused my help. This is one of those moments where I don’t know what to do. In nervousness, I shift my legs, slowly peeling them away from the laminate where they’ve stuck from my sweat. Next to me his shaky hands chopped peppers and onions and tomatoes. I watch him do this intently--I’m always curious to see how other people cut their fruits and vegetables. Sometimes he wouldn’t use a cutting board, tomato in hand, the knife precariously close to flesh. I could only watch with horror and fascination. Somehow it seems I know a lot of people who are bad at cutting fruit though I mean no judgement by this. I take a lot of enjoyment form the methodical way my mother taught me to handle fruits and vegetables. Take an apple for example. The clunk as its set upright on the cutting board. Rotating it to find the best angle, and in one motion cutting clean through the middle. The halves are laid on their backs, finger and thumb on either side creating an opening for the knife. Quarters. Each one individually cared for, the stem, seeds, and base removed. Up, down, rotate, repeat. Careful not to cut too far through to your hand. I never imagined this other way of doing it—removing the flesh as it comes. Permanently burned into my brain is the memory of an old friend, sitting at the kitchen table, apples, cutting board, and knife in front of her. After she cuts the apple (green) in half, she attempts to slice the half in half still in that upright position. Her hand wobbles back and forth trying to hold steady. It’s impossible to cut anything without a sturdy base yet miraculously she has never hurt herself doing this. Though I’ve never seen the boy cut an apple (I don’t know if he even likes apples), I’d imagine he’d cut around the apple core 1, 2, 3, 4 times, cutting the two bigger pieces in thirds. Four center pieces and four corners. Somehow and apple always divides into eight pieces. I’m fascinated by this geometry. At some point in high school I started eating apples whole, usually as a snack when I came home. This was something my family never did, and still doesn’t. Apples were always prepared by my mother, perfectly evenly sliced the way she taught me, placed on a plate and shared between the four of us at lunch. During the week, in my lunch, would be the slices of half an apple, the other half to be found in my sister’s lunch. As a snack, they’d be left on the cutting board on the kitchen counter, and the message delivered by my mother to everyone in their respective rooms. “There’s some apple in the kitchen if you want some.” Often this would incite running, as if the allotted two slices would be taken by someone else. As a rule, extra slices were only to be eaten if they were not claimed within several hours of the initial call. Sometimes my father would come in and ask, “There’s some apple in the kitchen for you, are you going to eat it?” This mostly happened when I was older, often times lying in bed in the dark engrossed in my computer. I never asked to eat the extra slices. There was always something about possession there, especially when I started eating my own apple. I wonder if we had stayed in California, would my mother have made the trek upstairs to alert us of the freshly sliced apple, or would the obstacle have inspired yelling in an all too quiet (stairless) household? I often mourn for a lost Californian childhood, imagining growing up on the hills of San Francisco. How different it would be--could be—from the flat deserts of the southwest. Though the whole state of California has not broken off and floated into the ocean like the movies of my childhood, the idea I have of this place might as well have. part two My first serious relationship began the summer after I graduated high school. I was away from home working at an all-girls summer camp where I had chosen to spend the last three months before college away from my family. For the past year, I had called myself Oliver. At summer camp I was Pan, as in Peter Pan. “Camp names” are a tradition from a time when it was improper to call an adult by their first name and “miss” was too formal. The new name symbolized the opportunity to escape the pressure to live up to an ideal image of masculinity, to “pass.” Camp was the ideal environment to do this: in an all-girls camp where everyone is assumed to be the same gender, the need to define yourself through gendered norms fades (at least a little). I liked the girl because she liked me, and I grew to like her (even love her), admire her, and learn so much from her. But because the relationship was founded on my “girl” camp self, there were fundamental things she did not understand about me and about my way of being in this world. Yet again, I fell into the trap of needing to live up to the image I’d made of myself. Looking back, I still feel conflicted about the choice I made to keep my gender identity to myself. Audre Lorde chose not to share her sexuality to a co-worker who exclaimed “I thought you was gay!” after finding out Audre is pregnant. (1) Someone recently pointed out to me that in doing so she claimed power over when and how she defined herself. I had not thought about it like that before, or how my own actions spoke to a personal need for space to discover myself. After being in a lesbian relationship for so long (two years which feels like forever at nineteen), I found it hard to own up to being non-binary even though I was surer than ever about the label—choosing one identity felt like abandoning the other, which I had a deeply personal connection to. I’ve been told before by other non-binary trans folk that you can’t be both lesbian and non-binary, and anyone who is both is dismissed as confused over the difference between gender expression and identity (though that difference isn’t necessarily cut and dry). “Rather than wanting to change the whole model, many of us want to be at the center.” (2) This is the kind of attitude which re-centers and prioritizes one trans experience over another which in a way reinforces cis-het ideals of gender. For example, the above kind of thinking plays into the stereotype which equates trans-masculine people to butch lesbian. People who actually identify similarly, such as non-binary lesbians, are seen as a threat to those who are trying to change the assumptions made about trans people. Even as they are breaking away from the power of cis het rules, they make their own rules, repeating the same abuse of power. (3) The reality of the situation is that the experience of gender is not monolithic or binary—it is necessary to acknowledge the multitude of experiences. (4) For a long time, I perceived my way of slicing apples as correct, as the monolith. It took “the sharing of joy” with those who are different to accept that difference into my definition of correct. (5) (1) Audre Lorde, Zami: A New Spelling of My Name: A Biomythography (Berkley: Crossing Press, 2011), 108. (2) Barbara Christian, “The Race for Theory,” Cultural Critique, no. 6 (1987): 61, https://doi.org/10.2307/1354255. (3) Christian, “The Race for Theory,” 60-61. (4) Christian, “The Race for Theory,” 59. (5) Audre Lorde, “The Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power,” in Sister Outsider Essays and Speeches (Berkley: Ten Speed Press, 2016), 56. Bibliography Christian, Barbara. "The Race for Theory." Cultural Critique, no. 6 (1987): 51-63. Accessed May 17, 2020. doi:10.2307/1354255. Lorde, Audre. “The Uses of the Erotic: the Erotic as Power.” In Sister Outsider Essays and Speeches, 53-59. Berkley: Ten Speed Press, 2016. Lorde, Audre. Zami: A New Spelling of My Name: A Biomythography. Berkley: Crossing Press, 2011.

On an early morning, when your body is powered only by the adrenaline of waking into a dark Earth, a lot of things are glowing. The clay-pinched lidcorners of your eyes focus them (your eyes, that is) like binoculars, and like magic, the sky suddenly enrosens. Trash bins, greener at this time than any other, are small hash marks in your field of vision that help you gauge the space, the distances between. The bins modify your sleepy eyesight, giving you a sense of texture and depth for the first time since yesterday; they are smaller and closer together the further they sit down the street, a special gift of depth perception. In the back of your head you feel pleasant magic. Wet and warm, in the back of the skull, the occipital lobe feels great. The sensation of perceiving low, yellowy light on the shiniest edges of objects both feels terrifically sunshined and cozy, like a cat stretched out in a bright patch on the carpet. You are familiar with the golden hour in the evening, when the sun falls, scrapes itself against the horizon, and drops its good blood onto tree leaves, causing warm golden pools, toasted skinshine, and other beauty. The sunrise is nothing like this. It’s quicker, you squint and think I should not be seeing this, in a humbling moment very unlike the lazy entitlement you foster before nightfall. So you have arrived at the morning light, with your binoculars and bin oculars, so to speak, the air is lighter, more high-altitude (that is, it appears to be, like your synesthetic displacement of the hum of an airplane cabin onto the similarly pink clouds outside your window), and as you have already noticed, a lot of things are glowing. Puddles are especially reflective, and windows, and metal baubles on fenceposts gleam, and so on. You are looking down a street, and to your delight, there are many more textures and watercolor shades. There are right angles, some flat slopes, browns and bricky oranges, warm blue, disconnected neon behind glass, sidewalks, trees. It’s still- you would feel relaxed and unwatched if not for one thing. The unifying accessory to your scene, a monument of two golden arches osculating on a forty-foot pedestal, hanging above, so bright it’s nearly translucent, glowing and catching the gold, a sponge for sunblood on a red prismic platform. The enormous McDonald’s sign is the colors of this morning at all times of day, on all days, so it is sort of the god of this time (in a barrenly etymological way, if you’ll forgive me, the zeitgeist). It is the literally shining example of sunrise perfection, as it achieves what parked cars (and discarded Coke cans, open/closed signs, and bench ads) strive for during sunrise, and does so completely effortlessly, and with total confidence. Every single thing in the world is swaying slightly during this time except for the unmovable geist, the McDonald’s sign. The McDonald's arches tower high above the street. Standing just underneath, you experience vertigo, and a mild fear of being crushed. It is the kind of gut fear that reminds you that you are an animal. The arches are the glowing eyes of the predator that is this part of the Earth, as natural as a shrinking cat pupil. Simultaneously, they are a witness mark of the culture you take for granted. The world's most recognizable corporate symbol watches rooftops. You often think of security cameras, but not of the giants who are always looming over the street. The Googie design was meant to remind you of luxury once, walking under a glowing, futurist arch and into the sharp frontier of affordable instant gratification. There is a drop of brutalism, too, in the hard molded edges of plastic, the thickness, the masculine imposition in space. This is a shape carefully crafted to evoke images of power and wealth. Back to the first kind of wonder, though- the natural kind. Let’s consider how it makes you feel like a mouse. You look up at something enormous in this morning light, where everything is uncanny and glowing and alive, and it is special because you are witnessing it alone, or nearly alone. This hour is the one where nothing is for granted, because it is very still and very fleeting. You don’t, of course, take any of it for granted, and you pause to look down at the light that with each passing minute becomes oilier. The golden arches are a dreamcatcher in this landscape. Or, no, the orchestral conductor. Or, no, the lightning rod. They are so high up, and so much bigger than you, and morning light will never pass through your bones like that, and your blood will never be as red as that rectangle. And as if you needed a reminder of what it could mean to be eternal, it reads: BILLIONS AND BILLIONS SERVED.

[cw: graphic violence] Today, November 1st: Anxieties about transitions loom heavily on our minds: brooding night skies are brought forth earlier and earlier by daylight savings; the glass pane windows downtown that once enticed the eyes of window shoppers hide behind a bastion of nails and plywood to deter potential rioters; the upcoming 2020 United States presidential election decides whether the incumbent remains or is replaced. • My 20th birthday is imminent, in which I lose any right to blame my angst onto my status as “teenager.” Now, as my last days of being a teen are coming to an end, I cannot help but return to 2013 when they began. I hate that in the eighth grade I didn’t know the difference between September 11th and 9/11, that something troubling had occurred on that particular day. I do recall knowing some bits and pieces. • In the spring of 2007, two Ukranian 19-year-olds approach an innocent man sleeping on a bench and repeatedly bludgeon his head with a blunt instrument. News reports reveal this grisly scene occurs only an hour after another victim’s face was smashed in by a hammer. Flashforward six years I stumble across a viral video and curiously flick my fingers across the trackpad to move the cursor over the link. • Specs of white fall from the sky until winds batter the snow, crisscrossing in all directions, whirling up and down through the night until settling on the ground. Upending the snow globe again, a crack on the side of the cheap plastic dome. Drops of the liquid inside begin to trickle onto my hand. Ew, is this stuff real snow? I scoot over to the sink and peer in once more to check on the scene inside. Safe, you are all still here. • Do you go on as if you have not just seen a video of a murder? And how did I return to school the following day as if nothing happened? It was just another day, though, of algebra, as if nothing out of the ordinary ever did happen... The pixelated shades of red did not fit neatly alongside numbers and equations but most likely resided insidiously deeper in my mind. • I had a thought recently. Even something inanimate can be turned into a human-like object. A snowman describes a scenario in which tiny ice crystals are somehow related to a human being with warm, soft flesh. • Yesterday. The snowstorm wouldn’t have been known to exist had I not walked outside to witness with my own eyes that in the backyard of my childhood home, the tessellating red and pink concrete bricks I remembered like the ceiling of my bedroom had been replaced with a unifying soft white, even and smooth. I fell backward as I had seen others do and so I had done so by instinct, but bracing. Except a layer of clothes had distanced me from snow. I scooped up snow and clasped my gloved fists tightly. Particles moved closer and became more compact. They yielded easily as I decided to wreck them with a tender squeeze, crumpling them into smaller versions of themselves. • Sibling and sky, sibling and sky, visions of my sister and brother alternate. Smashing its body and head, I will watch them from afar on a squeaky swing set. I manically chortle to myself, emptying my giddy as successive spurts of hot breath from my mouth. I don’t recall whether I had told my siblings to destroy him or if I had started it first. Our giggles are cut by a “Hey what are you doing?!” from a man I don’t know. Walking down his front porch across from the park, he will shout, “I had to wake up early before work so I could build that with my son for my wife!” I will not recall when this occurred, before or after the videos I watched. I believe that it was before. • A video begins with a man lying on his stomach. Stepping into the frame, the executioner wastes no time gliding a knife along his neck. I am curious again and I want to put images to words.

Evolution works differently in Marina City. Upon its completion in 1968, life inside its walls began to take on new forms, rewriting a genetic story that had already been written. Despite their relative proximity, each tower, Tower East and Tower West, represents a distinct branch on the re-evolutionary tree. The residents of Tower West live a very automatic life, all following the word of The Queen, words spoken in a language of dances and smells. They wish they didn’t have to listen, but did so anyway (one of the few remnants of the human condition as the rest of us know it). They grew wings in 1973, but they did not fly, as the laws of aviation dictate they should never be able. They follow the law, another remnant. If you were to ask any given resident of Tower West what their favorite color is, they would probably have a different answer depending on the individual, and mention that yellow and black is just a uniform. They can’t wear their main wardrobe at work, lest their nice outfit get sticky. The residents of Tower East, the more lakeward of the two constructions, can fly. They have been able to since 1969, when they grew their feathers and wings. To those watching that first flight from below, it looked like a suicide before it looked like a miracle. The diets of Tower East’s residents consist mostly of freshwater fish and salt water taffy. Despite the spacious apartments and condos found within the tower, the residents spend most of their time on the wicker furniture they keep on their balconies. On a windy day their song will carry all the way down to the very end of Wabash Ave.

A few days ago I heard from my cousin in China after we haven’t connected for years. He asked, “How’s ‘AJ’ in the U.S.?” After I looked it up on the Internet, I discovered “AJ” stands for “Air Jordan”. The question “How’s AJ in the U.S.?” could be further extended to mean, “Are the shoes really cheaper in the U.S.?”, “What do they have in stores there?”, “What’s the international shipping price?” and “How are you?” So I told him I was busy with school, but would check out prices for him when I had the time. I’m afraid of my cousin, because he’s more sensitive than he thinks he is. But he’s also strong. He served in the Chinese military for two years after high school then started helping my mom with her company. He’s pretty skinny, skinny but strong. A young man like him tries to be in control in every situation he’s involved. Sometimes he yelled at my mom for assigning him too much work; sometimes he got stressed and smoked cigarettes indoors. One time I imitated him smoking in front of my dad. My dad scolded me. I giggled and pointed my cigarette at my cousin and left them looking at each other. We almost grew up together. We have a third cousin, the middle one – someone younger than him, older than me. They would leave me out of the games they played. In his memory, it’s more ‘the two of them grew up together’ than ‘the three of us grew up together.’ The summer before I left for college, I moved to live with my mom in a different city shortly. I also stayed with him as he lived with her. My mom’s apartment is just a few minutes’ walk from her company. One day that summer, the power shut down in the neighborhood after it exceeded a maximum outage. The company had a project due the next morning. My cousin was the one in charge if things went ‘wrong’. It drove him crazy. The weather was suffocating. All rooms were hotter than the outdoors. Approaching the night when it became slightly cooler, I went downstairs to get some ice water from a convenience store. He was out for a cigarette break too. At first I didn’t notice him. I turned around and I saw him squatting on the sidewalk. He was looking in my direction. It might have been me he looked at, or the sky behind me, or the two bottles of fresh ice water in my hands. I still remembered how cool they felt in my palms, as sweat went down my spine. He didn’t move, holding his cigarette like a statue, didn’t smoke. The cigarette was dying between his fingers, glowed once, then quietly submerged in the palette of the night. That was the only time I remembered him not smoking. I was afraid. I’m always afraid of my cousin — his presence was forgotten, exposed in the sultriness, and left behind by the world, by me, by his mother, the way he grew up... I walked to him as fast as I could, as if he would evaporate in the sun the next second. The moment I saw him, I knew I’d have to deliver the water to him, for it was the least I could do. He accepted it and said thanks and told me to go home, “It’s too hot outside.” Then I went home, and he went back to work. In my childhood memories, my cousin has been many things, a magician, a hip-hop dancer, a dropout, and the only person who went to military service in my family. In the camp, he talked to my mom about his future over the phone, then talked to my two uncles, the adults who ran business in the family; the last, he talked to his mother, because she’s the least educated. She would listen and nod her head on the other side of the phone. Years before that, he was a magician. He played good card tricks. We sat on the couch and watched him make the cards stand on their own on the soft cushions. He said a good magician never reveals his secrets. But later the reason why he never became a real magician was never revealed with those secrets. He did college exams twice, failed twice. You can’t push someone to become what he’s not. He taught himself hip-hop dancing, and was good at it. But it didn’t do him any good when he failed the exams. People talked. Even relatives judged, but rationalized that he’s not a bad kid for failing the exam twice — he was just not well taken care of by his mother who played Mahjong, a Chinese entertaining and gamblingish game every single day of his childhood. Even after her son was rejected by every college in China, she didn’t change in the slightest. This is where the relatives reassured that, education is important to a family. Because my aunt didn’t attend a college, because her family was poor, now the son couldn’t go, because of what she couldn’t do. Oh the mother, the mother, why does it always have to do with the woman? I remember him growing up standing beside the Mahjong table then became taller than it. He was generally ignored, and often beaten; he would cry in front of us, his younger cousins, out of shame but more because he had done nothing wrong, but the mom slammed him way too hard. In China, every kid loves new year because of candies and new year lucky money that’s wrapped in a red paper bag and given by any older relatives in a family. This is a Chinese tradition through which children gain temporary “financial independence” that would last a few months after the new year. But my cousin never kept the lucky money to himself. He had to “return” it to my aunt and had to be honest about the amount he received. He knew she needed it, or where else she could have the extra money for others’ kids? Perhaps, he urgently wanted to do something with the financial situation of his family. After high school, he went to the military service. And after another two years, he’s back and ready to support the family. I had no idea what “AJ” stand for when he asked me about it. Is it a brand just like Nike? On the other hand, he knows more fashion brands than I do. He kept himself stylish after he started earning money. The summer I lived with him, he took me on his electric motorcycle to movie theaters, and paid for our tickets. At the end of the summer, we ended up sharing a series of Marvel films — he made sure we arrived the theater on time for midnight premieres. I hugged him from the back on his motorcycle so that the wind didn’t hurt both of us. When I had a fight with my mom which made her cry, he looked at me quite seriously and warned me, “You don’t.” Old memories flashed back while the motorcycle traveled in the street lights. He knew the feeling of breaking a mother’s heart. When he argued with my aunt, they both cried. Her ignorance made him want to be a man one day, so people will listen… On our way to the theater, we shared a pair of earphones, one inside his ear, one inside mine. The wire of the earphones flew in the wind. It was a Kendrick Lamar song he liked. “Loving you is complicated.” “Oh loving you is complicated..” “Oh loving you is complicated..”

“Tell me again.” I sigh. It’s been three years since I started working the night shift, but my parents still make me recite the rules. Dad leans against the entrance to the kitchen, arms folded, the keys for the noodle shop clutched in his fist. At the stove behind him, Kei gives each pot of broth a final taste. They keep their back to us, but I know they’re listening. “Satoshi.” Dad snaps his fingers at me. “We don’t have all night.” “Fine.” I shove my hands into my pockets. “One: every customer must be served. Two: pay attention to the radio. And three: never open the door for anyone who knocks.” The instructions are easy enough. I’m the only one who works here after midnight, but the customers are patient. My parents helped at first; they’d alternate each time, helping me serve meals until I could run the shop on my own. After six months with no mistakes, they moved me to the night shift permanently. Dad tosses me the keys, grinning when they hit me square in the chest. The silver bell keychain jingles obnoxiously. “Quit bullying him, Minoru.” Kei turns down the heat beneath each pot and moves to stand next to us. They reach for the hem of dad’s jacket, zipping it up in one fluid movement. He rolls his eyes. Kei gives me a quick once-over. “Have you had dinner?” they ask, gently fixing my hair. Their touch is cool against my skin. I nod, a motion met with a hum of approval. Kei crooks a finger at me, and when I lean down, they place a kiss on my forehead. Dad takes them by shoulders, giving me a pointed look before steering his partner out from behind the register. As the two of them make their way to the front, Kei turns on the radio sitting atop the counter. Kyu Sakamoto’s rich voice begins to fill the restaurant. “I look up while I walk…” “We’re heading out, Toshi. Be smart,” Kei calls from the door. They take dad by the arm. The windchime above the entrance sings goodbye. I wave until my parents are out of sight, their retreating figures swallowed up by the fog. On nights like this, I’m glad they have each other; it’d be a mistake to walk home alone. “So the tears won't fall…” I fry tofu while waiting to open. It’s our most popular side dish, and with the weather getting cold, there’ll be more customers asking for it. “Remembering those spring days…” The clock strikes one. Kyu Sakamoto’s voice warps, his crooning garbled by a stuttering radio signal. I look outside. Something is crawling around in the fog. Even in the poor lighting, I can tell it has far too many limbs to be human. Still, it’s time. I take a deep breath and unlock the door. “But tonight I'm all alone— I’m all alone— I’m all alone—”

I whisper embers from under my breath, They say the world speaks wonder to the deaf, So I ask two steps of the earth for certainty, And as I sacrifice my insecurity to the flames, Let the names of people that supported me, Be the coals ignited in the inferno, And the sweat on my palms be the gasoline, Feeding fire with the tragedy of my bones. The fires of sin and suffering set ablaze to purify mind body and soul. I call for choked ashes to stoke massive bright blazing cries, Let these adjectives ignite masses of fire within your eyes. Watch these flickering tendrils rise With every added step in the beat I hold tempo for the street, I hold tempo in the keep, As it crackles with the heat of my aura, my call, my drive. If my voice roars right, Against the wind soaring above my head, Will I have salvaged sight? Will I have made this uproar the demise of that goodnight? A stream of magma that steadily burns in the river, Running down my body readily Crack like pure lightning shot, the heat makes me frightening, I am the bomb ready to explode, I am the glow that nightfall mingles with, Bright enough to spit flames send heat tingles for miles, Don’t blame the volcano for popping it’s hot head, When it’s been cold for so long, Lonely mountain wants hot lead to pierce sorrow in your heart, So you can sing along. So let me stand here feet planted, And let the glow strike the night like dog howls strike silence. Maybe we all see the light like you all hear my lips, Struggle to hold the words together as they try to burst from all the pressure, Given by this awful measure of thoughts I no longer want to control. I call on my fire for minimal words to inspire multitudes of action. May it bless you like many things have before, I’m ready, yes, I’m ready for another heart pounding fight with the demons in the night, Let’s have some more. I am the residual flame, pouring my soul into words flurry stunning dance with dark entities But feet planted all the same.

Whenever the trains speed in from different directions at the same time, the noise is the only thing you can feel in your head. It reverberates through every split end, fingernail, and freckle that hides on the small of your back. You know that in between Harrison and Jackson there are even more bumps and shakes then normal, and you spot the tourists and the new-comers as they stumble through their surprise. Eyelashes shake. Wrinkles quiver. The movement of the train echoes the shakes and stalls of your brainwaves. Whenever you sit in your room, laundry and work and takeout containers piling up around you, you can feel the rats start to crawl around under your skin. They scurry around through your stomach and up your throat, building a nest in your head that pounds into the sides of your skull. Come out, you shout, you want to reach down your esophagus and pull them out of your mouth, you want them to help instead of hurt, take the garbage out and fold the clothes on your bed and tap their little feet across your keyboard so they can finish your goddamn essay. But you can’t, and they don’t, they continue having babies in your ears and over your eyes until you just give up and go to sleep. Whenever you’re waiting for the Red Line, your eyes sweep up and down the tracks looking for life. You’re looking for little friends to share this wait with -- come up here, little friends, you can use my other earbud! You dream that they’ll sit on your shoulder through the wait and the ride and the walk up miles upon miles of stairs, because you know that escalator is never going to be fixed in THIS economy. You’ll share popcorn back in your dorm room and have fun times freaking out your roommate. You’ll live together until your little friend’s life comes to its end, and they walk their little feet into Rat Heaven where there’s cheese and popcorn and earbud sharing whenever they want. Either that, or you’re the kind of person that hopes the rat gets crushed by the train. Whenever you pass by PetSmart or Petco, there’s the urge to walk in and buy the place out. Hello sir, I’ll take all your adoptable kittens, after all, they keep trying to play with me through the glass. Yes ma’am, I’ll take some of those lizards off your hands, after all they look awful squished in there. Excuse me Mx., but those hamsters are just beautiful with their striped backs, and I always wanted one when I was a kid. But you stop in front of the rat cage and stare for a while. They are piled on top of each other napping, or wandering around their cage looking for games, or sitting on top of the water bottle, almost falling off, staring at their reflection, and you know they can see the reflection and know what it is and you think about this cage and this store and you want to buy all of them but you know you can’t so you’ll just wander in and stare at the rats for a bit longer and leave without buying anything and wonder if the rats in the CTA would know what to do with their reflections. You wonder if you know what to do with yours. You get home, and you stare.

i stumble blindly across this barren wasteland each twist and turn tumultuously teetering as i kick sand upward to a solstice summer sky grains now glittering crystals a thousand kisses on my skin set brazenly ablaze by the white sun beating down in all its burning glory the soles of my feet scorched charred almost black moving with these whirling winds that warp my waltzes put perfectly in-time by the devil with whom i must always dance who delicately takes my hand placed on his chest inside he says could be the heart i heal the touch i hold that may one day make him a better man dance again he says again again

Bellis Perennis I think I miss you. I’m not sure what of you there is to miss. Press me between the pages of your favorite book. Weave me into a crown. I am not sure what to do with myself these days. I miss you even as I remember your chubby child hands holding me too tight and the way my petals wilted. You didn’t mean to hurt me, but I think that makes it worse. Gramineae The grass is singing. You wait for the ticks to bite. Dalea Candida Somewhere out there is a pond and it stinks of algae and rot. Someone told you they dump bodies in it. You would not know it is there if not for the smell. There is an island at the center, and you dream of running away and hiding there where no one would find you. It is better to be a frog than a girl. Liatris pycnostachya I am not sure why I tell you the meanings of flowers. Once I saw my mother toss roses in the trash. “All flowers do is die”, she said. Silphium laciniatum Some wildflowers have no meaning. Daucus carota In the schoolyard red berries fell from trees which could not be eaten. A flower can be a hundred blooms. I collect bouquets and then have to leave them outside. They do not let me go out into the field, but they do not watch me either. Perhaps I should have run away. Perhaps I should have stayed. I didn’t mean to hurt you, but I think that makes it worse.

The old, slouching house was an island on the flooded town. Its wooden porch bumped right up against the still water, soaking silently in the gentle waves. White siding drooped like tired eyes and every once in a while, a large piece of wood or a shingle slid off and disappeared into the liquid graveyard below. The last house left was home to the Adlers. When their neighbors evacuated, first by car and then by raft, they remained. Mrs. Adler was sure everyone had made quite a fuss over what was just an unusually brutal thunderstorm. “By morning, the streets will be dry and the roads will be clear,” she said from the porch. “Mark my words.” Mr. Adler and their son Ronnie did mark her words. And by sunrise, the sea had begun creeping up the sidewalk, lapping against the concrete. “Give it one more day,” she grunted from the kitchen window. “And it will all be gone.” Another day passed and the lawn disappeared. “Sweetheart, let’s get going,” said Mr. Adler softly. “I think it’s time.” But Mrs. Adler wouldn’t even consider it. This was her home, goddamnit, and she wouldn’t be shoved out by any thunderstorm or flash flood. “One more day,” she said again. “One more day and it will be dry as the desert out there.” Needless to say, it was not dry. The sky continued to unleash its vicious waters and the wind continued to berate the crumbling house. Yet still the Adlers stayed. One afternoon on the sinking porch, Ronnie and his mother sat on their rocking chairs and quietly watched the rain. This was Mrs. Adler’s favorite activity, and no longer able to go anywhere at all, she had turned it into a full-time job. “It’s only getting stronger,” Ronnie observed. “There’s a hole in the sky,” said his mother. “A great big leak.” “I wish we could patch it up.” He pointed to a rip in the screen door that Mr. Adler had covered in three evenly cut strips of masking tape to keep out the mosquitoes. “Just like this.” “A patch,” said his mother to the wind. “A patch. And the rain will stop.” She stood from her rocking chair and hurried inside, leaving Ronnie alone with the storm. She gathered every blanket and every pillow and every one of Mr. Adler’s old shirts. “What are you doing with my clothes?” he asked his wife. “I’m saving the world,” she called back, excitement and determination shining in her eyes as she marched up the attic steps. “I’m saving the world.” On the sprawling attic floor, she cut each piece of fabric into the largest square it could hold and laid them out in a checkerboard of gingham and florals and stripes. With the focus of a surgeon, she stitched together each piece until there were yards and yards of solid cloth. Yards turned into miles, and piles of patchwork filled the room. She left no piece of material untouched. The couch lost its cushions. The mattresses were stripped of their sheets. The carpets were gone and so were the tablecloths and spare towels. Every textile found its way to the attic, where Mrs. Adler sat through the days and nights stitching and stitching, listening to the rain fall on the roof like dropped ceramic plates. For months she did nothing but sew and sleep. Sew and sleep. Sew and sleep. One gray morning, just as the water was about to consume the porch, Mrs. Adler came barreling down the stairs, sweat flying from her brow and onto the hardwood steps where there had once been a plush runner. “I’m done,” she announced. “It’s done. The patch is finally finished.” Ronnie and his father looked up from their books. “Honey, that’s excellent,” said her husband. “We’re very proud of you. And the boys returned to their novels. “Well, come on,” she said, confused by their silence. “It’s time to patch it up.” “What do you mean, darling?” asked Mr. Adler. “The sky,” she replied, frustration rising in her voice. “We’re patching up the sky.” The boys exchanged a glance. Though only eleven years old, Ronnie understood the situation a lot more clearly than his mother did. “Ma,” he said. “I don’t think a patch will work. I think it’s done.” “What’s done?” asked his mother, concerned frown. “Well,” he replied carefully. “Everything. We’re the last ones left. And it’s been raining forever. They say on the radio there’s no more survivors in the whole town. They say it’s gone like it never happened. No one knows we’re even here. It’s done.” “Nonsense,” she said. “You’re speaking nonsense. Come and see what I’ve made.” With no choice, they followed the manic woman up the stairs and down the hallway and up some stairs again. Their footsteps echoed in the skeletal house, free of all its softnesses. Light fell in from the windows, throwing the rainstorm in shadow against the walls. Even inside, everything vibrated with the movement of water. Once at the attic, they found they could hardly go in. The bolts of tweed and wool and cotton were packed from ceiling to floor. It was a room overflowing with fabric, one giant square that folded in on itself at least five thousand times. “All we’ve gotta do,” said Mrs. Adler, breathing heavily from the walk up. “Is stitch this patch. To the sky. And the rain will stop.” Ronnie could hardly speak. He reached out to caress a square of suede that used to be his favorite fall jacket. He had nearly forgotten the feeling of fiber since his mother begun this project. He hadn’t realized until that moment just how much he missed it. “Ma,” he said quietly. “Let’s sit for a minute.” He parted the waves of polyester and linen and climbed into the woven room. Inside was a cacophony of colors, a parade of patterns, none matching their neighbor but all joining in a kaleidoscope of Adler history. He saw his father’s fancy suit stitched into the wall. He saw his mother’s silk scarf arc above him on the ceiling. And for the first time in what felt like years, he could not hear the rain. The quilted cave created a cocoon of complete silence. “Come in,” he yelled. “Come inside.” The structure opened in a diamond of light and his parents crawled through to join him. “I don’t believe it,” said Mr. Adler, looking around in wonder. They huddled together in the fabric attic and marveled at its beauty. And because of the silence, not one of them heard the screen door break from its flimsy hinges. Not one of them heard the waves crash against the hardwood floor downstairs.

I feel them day after day. I hear their secrets, small conversations that dwindle in the dark room. Once, there had been a time before them. But there was a time before them. The day I met Her we saw each other at the store. I knew we were meant to be together. I went home with Her, and I knew She cared when She carried me up the back stairs despite how heavy, helpless, and awkwardly shaped I was. From that day on we spent every night together. It was more than I thought I would have in my life, dare I say perfect. But I said it a little too soon, because He came one night, and He never left. I have to share Her now. I’ve tried many times to smother Him in His sleep. He lays there snoring, and I resent Him and His hot breath. However, I am useless. I am helpless. I can’t even smother a stranger. I know She must still love me though. She spent a whole day building a frame just for me. She still washes my sheets and puts blankets on me when it is cold. But then I listen to them talk quietly at night, and it makes me wonder if She ever loved me at all. I wonder, but in my heart I know She never loved me like that. I still listen to them talk in the dark. But it is different now than when we first lived in that small apartment with the green walls together. Back then they had been exciting in the way newness is exciting. They came with uncertainty, a twinge of awkwardness, and the inevitable fear that you find when you are vulnerable with someone else. At some point that excitement subsided along with the fear and the awkwardness, but I don’t think the vulnerability ever left. They would say the same things every morning and every night. “Good morning how did you sleep? Did you dream?” and before sleep “Goodnight, I love you, dream with me.” The same every morning, and every night. Every morning, and every night. A start and close as though without it the day would never really begin or end. I wanted to believe they had become predictable. If they were predictable it would mean they were somehow boring, or dull. Something all too describable. In their repetition of day after day I first questioned whether their words really held any meaning to them anymore. However, if I really believed they didn’t hold meaning, I know It wouldn’t feel as though the day never really comes to an end when one of them says “Goodnight. I love you. Dream with me?” and there is only silence in response.