some day, any day

of a mushy mind.

5a - he’s up again, something with his stomach. You take him downstairs. Hope it’s not another ER visit. Budget tight again this month. It’s quiet and nobody’s around. It’s nice like this.

5:14a - you see the text messages you forgot to answer and remind yourself to answer them at a more reasonable hour, but you’ll forget again, for days probably. You wished people just called you more. Or showed up at your door. Years ago your friend tried to set you up with another writer who lived in Florida and suggested to write them a postcard. She texted him for his address and told him about you and he returned her message with the answers. So you filled out the postcard given for free at the vegan restaurant she’d taken you to, and months passed, and you move homes, and so she asks did you ever get a letter back from him? You tell her no, and she says she’ll yell at him, but you don’t want her to. He’s a writer who couldn’t write a letter what does that tell you? You joke. Really, I think my preferred communication method would be a fax machine. It has the potential for immediacy but also is material and intimate. There’s anticipation once it kicks up its gears. Do you have one? She asks. No, you say, and it’s not like I plan on getting one. I don’t know anyone who faxes, but my ranking would be 1) door buzz 2) fax 3) phone call 4) text message 5) email. You’d have to get a fax machine then, she says. I guess I would.

6a - up again, this time for good. How bright it already is. You feel summer coming in.

6:05a - hands to chest and breathing. Put on a meditation.

7a - you’re still resting here. Sleep wasn’t good.

7:15a - dollar cash for a bagel. You dress it at home. The construction workers gather around him as he reaches their table, take turns petting him. Don’t let him steal anything. You say with a smile. He’s not feeling good.

8a - stretching, flowing. You were supposed to go uptown for a swim but had to cancel. Your friend says maybe a night swim? You can hardly keep your eyes open. Been up on and off since 1a. Really sorry, you say.

Here are the things you thought about at 1a:

- will this be your home forever?

- ⁠will this always be our government?

- ⁠you’re pretty sure you were radicalized because Eminem’s “Mosh” was so good you made it your MySpace song for like three years and then you put Michael Moore on your Top 8.

- a time years ago when a friend sent an urgent text to come help flood her block in Crown Heights with “Free Palestine” posters because more Zionist stuff had gone up and so you came down with him in your backpack and then walked with him from the train to her apartment and her neighbors were on their stoop and cooed, “Hi doggy,” to him, which he ignored, but then they said “I love you,” to him and he stopped and wagged his tail and went up to them and they laughed, “He knows that one,” and how that made you feel good.

- ⁠another book is ready for pickup at the library but you already had to return the one you didn’t finish to pick up four more you haven’t started; maybe you were a better reader when you were a teacher.

And then it’s 10a. You’re drawing again and have nearly filled a notebook this past week. You start updating that hidden part of your website.

11a - you decide to make a salad out of a can of beets and shake like half a bottle of dill over it. Does that make it German?

Thoughts you have during lunch:

- you’re pretty sure you’ve applied for everything you think you should apply for and if things are out of your hands then it should be out of your head too and how can you believe in all this spiritual stuff if sometimes you still swell with doubt?

- ⁠was that Josh Johnson you passed on the street yesterday?

You look up Josh Johnson. There’s a new interview on YouTube. He talks about how people squint when they see him, and you laugh. Yeah that was him you saw. You’re surprised because you hardly recognize anyone. You end up watching the whole thing. He talks about the rhythms of success and finding a flow outside of yourself, something like what you’ve been trying to achieve.

6p - you clip your bike helmet to your backpack on your way to your friend’s book launch but you don’t end up using it. You just smack people as you turn around in the crowded room above The Strand. She does so well up there on stage—everyone who asks questions gets right to the heart of it. You sit with friends you haven’t seen in years and then walk down the street and then keep walking home, and it’s so quiet in your bedroom.

10p - you realize he’s okay. He’s getting better. It’s probably because he stole the popcorn you made that fell on the floor.

What was it you did during those other hours? You try to remember now, but the days blur together. Running along the FDR. Plank under the bridge. Was that today or yesterday? Reading a neighbor’s copy of Meaty by Samantha Irby while her dog finishes his bowl of water. Sam Irby worked in a vet clinic during her early career. At home you read Patricia Lockwood poems in the bathtub. The ones where nations are bodies having sex. That feels relevant in this moment, you think, if people could just look at countries this way—stop it with all these borders. Stop it with the nationalism. We’re literally just land linked together. Just people floating on top of earth in a giant ocean. Get a hold of yourself.

Your poem is going up for the summer in an art show in Pennsylvania, and you’re not sure if you can go. There’s going to be hawks there, maybe an owl. How do you explain to the market that this is your dream audience?

You wrote the poem about a parrot you rescued during the pandemic. One that showed up at the door of your childhood home.

11p - if you don’t sleep soon you’ll be tired again tomorrow, but there’s so much to think about. You realize you forgot to eat dinner but you’re not even hungry, and then you’re sleeping, asleep, mind off to wherever minds go when eyes close.