5/6
i'm thankful that mother nature flipped the switch in the sky and it's really springtime now, the air is different, bare skin everywhere, dandelions crane their necks to broadcast seeds, music through car windows, little purple flowers carpet the backyard, the breeze becomes a relief rather than a plague, fat bees buzz around the garbage can, a sense that everything is porous, a flow, irises open their folds, canopies thicken and make shade.
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i'm thankful to have rediscovered these little five line daily poems i made around this same time of year five years ago, when i was trying to be inspired by the new bounty of the world and convince myself that i could use this shape to capture it, hold it like a firefly in cupped hands:
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cut grass
our town is drowning in cut grass
i almost ran over a blackbird
the choir is mixed so low; an interesting choice
how annoying any sound can be when you’re annoyed
i want a new voice
righteousness and dismay
all the fallen pink and purple leaves make it seem like the storm last night was god having a party
after a visit with an energy healer, my mother was able to tell me the location of my heart chakra
the strange combination of righteousness and dismay that accompanies an incorrect weather forecast
it all washed away like a sad sand castle and i am left with the smooth nothing filled with salt water
such great joy in giving an old woman directions to a roundabout
steel wool
around a corner, a greenhouse i had never seen, surrounded by piles of scrap lumber
the amount of ambition one would need to decide to stop having orgasms in the belief that it might help one work harder
the idea, advanced by a female painter, that new mediums that didn’t require the mark of the artist’s hand were the mediums in which women artists were first allowed to be successful
a male literary magazine editor, discussing his record: “i really killed it on the vida count this semester”
a kind of concrete that looks like steel wool
great desire
a shave and a haircut and i become a yearbook photo
an awful lot of glaring whiteness to look at
sometimes when i’m running and a bike goes past me on the sidewalk, i feel a great desire to shove the rider off into the air
my yoga app says “take your gaze to the middle finger”
a crooked welcome sign
indefinite articles
“i’m so spoiled,” she says, and i’m confused by her sudden candor until she makes clear she’s talking about a TV show
metaphorical falsetto
the difference between “i’ve never had sex on the beach” and “i’ve never had a sex on the beach”: indefinite articles of clothing
contrapuntal fumbling
the package describes my probiotic as a “friendly” bacteria so now i imagine a cartoon ghost living inside of me
no evidence
a legend is a guide to how maps lie
there is no evidence that new universes are created at the center of black holes
the only faces that can appear in your dreams are composites of ones you have already seen
the computer exhales as i press the sleep button
a warm tone, thick with harmonics
dried fruit
as a child, i owned a lucky rabbit’s foot that was died the color of toxic red berries
i studied under my drawing teacher for almost a year before realizing he had a glass eye
one week, i jumped off my bed and tried to fall with all my weight on my wrist because i thought a fracture would make me happy
the girl who sat in front of me in algebra had a purple sweater the texture of shag carpet and i learned palm reading to have a reason to touch her
i remember bible school as quietly eating dried fruit in an empty parking lot
slowly waking
it opens with this long description of slowly waking up
all the noise of the world sent through a low pass filter
the sun and my glass of water make a tiny rainbow on the carpet for a second
outside the bedroom window, two people meet, each earlier than the other expected
you are more than just an accident of the universe
require pollen
apple trees require pollen from different kinds of apple trees in order to produce fruit
the owner of a blog of cute pictures of dogs accidentally posted a video about the pleasures of anal sex
the ceo with the goal of “disrupting divorce” is invested in there being more of it, not less
cars slowing down on wet streets at night sound like small waves gliding over dark sand
chopin’s body is buried in france, but his heart is buried in poland
a mirage
not two blocks after i crossed the street to avoid a former teacher, a former student crossed the street to avoid me
open a new incognito window
as a child in the ocean, i stepped on a sharp shell that my parents called a fluke and, because of that, didn’t enjoy swimming for years
someone meaning to write “a barrage of issues” wrote “a mirage of issues”
after days of gray without rain, i had stopped trusting the sky
then blur
in spring, we shed layers as the world adds them
there’s a specific name for the smell after it rains for the first time in a long time
two deer looking through a wire fence at a pile of firewood under the damp canopy
blur, then sharpen, then blur, then sharpen, then blur
the dusky smoke that comes right after you blow out a candle
i'm thankful that spring coming for the world reminds me that it's always possible for springtime to come for my mind as well, that even though sometimes the cold dark seems endless, the synapses still can reform, tree roots growing around buried rocks to anchor me, new words and sentences and images burbling up to the surface like springwater. i'm thankful to remind myself for all the times that it feels like winter inside.
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