dus•ty

There are tiny children in me made of furious, shifting dust. They’re pushing against my ribs and passing through each other, aware only of their ill intent. They are made of fury and hurt, oblivious to their number’s compounding effects on their host. Their teeth are sharp, and their claws find purchase on every available patch of internal flesh.

I look down and gingerly rub my aching chest, unsure of the remedy. I'm scared to ask & powerless to describe the shape-shifters within me.

I have no authority over them, because I have no jurisdiction in their motherland. A land where people are animals and animals are people, where some lives mean nothing more than space occupied, and greed is a more welcome fuel than peace.

They are shaking me and they are multiplying, so I begin to stow them away in cubbies, crafted in secret of my own muscle and sinew. As more children appear, more cubbies are built.

Years from now, how far down will these rows extend into my body? Legs filled with furious dust, shaking as I age.

Only the most unaffected, or perhaps the most engaged, hosts find themselves still walking gracefully as they grow old, as they lead their grandchildren down the aisle.

As if reaching to pet a puppy, I brace for the nips on my finger, the scratches on my wrist as I reach down into my chest. I wince as I let these scared, filthy children step into my palm. As I carry them up through my throat towards the light of day, I can’t help but dream of hearing, “grandpa, what stable legs you have”.

fluf•fing, 10

I think that We Can Do Hard Things desensitizes its listeners to revelation.

I had a dream last night that I was sitting diagonally back to back with a middle-aged woman. She was waving her glass of wine about as she emphatically told stories. I asked her to be careful, and she was incredulous that I didn't trust her to defy the laws of gravity and stop the wine from splashing out of her remarkably mobile and horizontal glass.

How many people do you think have ring lights for their work-from-home setup? Is that appropriate?

I had a dream last night that I was at the home of my coworker (as a friend? an airbnb guest? perhaps a son?). His wide open kitchen was a charming array of floating wooden shelves, clay vases, and striped hand towels flung on countertops. At first, he was married to someone I didn't recognize--her name may have been Tammi? After we unloaded bags and bags of groceries from his car, he filmed me with a plastic on-the-should camcorder as I slowly walked through his drafty, thin-white-tapestry-swept family room. His wife became Sabrina Impacciatore, crying on the floor as she appeared to be picking up fallen groceries like puzzle pieces, this incident so clearly the straw that broke the back of her aching heart.

Everyone’s a catch if you’re lookin for ‘em.

bed

My bed looks the same every day.

As I get into it, as I make it, as I stand from it, as it peeks into view past my computer screen.

But it doesn't feel the same, not every day.

Sometimes it reassures me, firm like a car seat.

I fall asleep and then I wake up.

Sometimes it feels like a basement, the kind that is cold and haunted even though it's finished and carpeted. The kind where you stay smiling, but you also stay close.

Sometimes it feels like an insignia. “Look at him - so grown, so clean.”

Sometimes I want to throw tomato juice on it and go for a walk.

I remember a bed with bright yellow sheets where I expanded and contracted into myself.

I remember a wood-framed bed in a sage room with a fetal indentation.

I remember knowing, as soon as I touched a bed or brought someone into it, that I'd never be there with them again.

I remember sitting on the edge of a quilted bed, marring a friendship for months.

I remember a cold bed by the window with an invisible line down the middle.

I remember a warm, cushioned bed with a water bottle and a dog cage beside it.

I remember a leather couch that I employed for distance.

I remember a series of beds in which I laid next to no one and rose hours after the sun.

I remember a deep peace in a familiar bed in a new apartment, just for a moment.

I remember hoping, believing maybe that was the bed where I belonged.

My own bed is a cast-iron, seasoned by recipes I thought I wanted.

My bed is a ceiling fresco in progress, and for now, I sleep only among its fading depictions.