everything else: july
dear internet,
like a home video, skittering, stop-start, somehow both sped up and slowed down. long stretches of the mundane, my laundry piling up and the blinds always down, and then once in a while something that stands out: a woman at the crosswalk stretches out her arm, palm upward, to check for rain; in a building across us we can see the flickering light of a tv screen, the point of bright fire made by a single cigarette. i lie on the floor, we eat sliced melon, the jackdaws congregate and shriek. i fall asleep on a packet of silica gel (“do not eat throw away do not eat”) while outside the teenagers on my street sing amy winehouse. i cut my hair short, i turn thirty-three, i leave work early because the humidity gives me a migraine that makes the fluorescent lights of the kitchen glow threateningly in the field of my vision. i cry because someone is nice to me. a cat leans out of the window and meets my gaze, enquiring. a hedgehog moves quietly across the tall grass.
love,
t