COLLATERAL

Ex-boyfriends and relatives have risen to the rooftop and won’t let go. Emily tries to calm them with grace and simplicity. To go anywhere. This morning the ocean disappeared. People got hurt getting their taste. And all the rest you mumble moonlight. The shades of quietude

You are the least fascinating version of yourself.

Was I going for a walk alone? Don’t take your pulse seriously. There is the name and the thing, cut out. We arrived in shreds. I’d like to be able to speak exhaustively, but I got feelings without names, displaced. My experiment on breathing will take its toll on your generation. I know the difference between seeing and memory, lost and found. Now Emily’s gone and I wish I lived a more judicious existence, like larvae. She didn’t wish to live at all. Too much thinking or not enough? Messiness. After a conversation with my mother on dissemination, I gave up tennis. Thunder on the mountain but the clouds give no rain to our hemisphere. Mom said people are divided into dark and light. Dad says become anything but a secretary. My sister and I will run away and blame them for everything—dropping off and bursting open.