August 24. 2026 Wedding poem

On the happiest day of my life
Emma led a man down the steps of her apartment
covered in a long coat
to obscure
his body completely held in red rope.

Earlier I was laid in wet shells
at the bottom of a bathtub
someone else's hair hanging from my ears
as I contemplated the white ceiling.

I didn't even imagine
on this one day of all others
that someone could not love
the silk change
that had befallen us.

I thought of them at the beach,
playing in the rocks like crabs
as the water came
their fabrics now built into the body,
hallways of calcium shells hardened
through intricacy.

Emma had told me that she wished to leave no mark
she deleted her photos every so often
spines and fur grew or receded
through her sharp hand, her clear voice
speaking always as though
there was no way to not be brave.

Meanwhile,
Elliot taught me to be a man
'it is more than fashion' he said,
it is an ease, a belief in me
in himself, and all others
a belief in a world that was safe for us
made beautiful through our own mechanisms
the softness and care of our speech,
our openness and reflex
to look, to wonder

They came like angels to the edge of the tub and looked
over.

I saw a love that would always surround me.

They said they were most excited for after
when they would run through a meadow
and just look into each other's eyes

I felt that I risked Emma's fears of perception
to tell her how much I thought of this moment too,
the grass and the meadow flies all around
a hollow in the depth and assurance of time
the meadow would change but not end,
we did not have to be afraid,
for we could make what we needed
from our own hands.

Elliot was guided slowly down the stairway
giant heels thumping with each step
in the garden
he slipped out of the coat
in the low dusk
he and Emma stalked to the fence
arranging the tendrils of rope
until they were fluid
faces from every window of the courtyard watched as
we walked as ourselves.

July 27. 2026 Bett im Stil der Epoche

I wonder if it's about acting, pretending, as if learning a language, surrounding myself with the things I need, to use to see, to pull into me.
I feel a rush of relief,
three silver stars holding his hair, a flash of pink in the dark theater from either his pants or his shirt,
someone I know sits down a row in front of me.





  • use of language inherently contains stories which still reach into ancient texts, 'acre' remains biblical
  • 'sophistication' - what adds credibility? previously spiritual elements and now mathematics, reproducibility
  • with reproducibility of a figure, thought and bias become more 'baked in' -- no longer interrogated
  • desire for things to be controlled and happen over and over, desire for control and 'endless reproduction'
  • importance of mirroring and reflecting our experience out, our choice to live under queens, we reflect our family structure back into our lives, what animals do this?
  • Milk
  • Eggs

I slowly forgot you. I went instead to the harbor and watched ships moving and landing, I did this when I thought of you and someday I forgot to think of you; of your body lying on the bed, of what I saw with you, of the sun coming over the hillside and us talking outside the bakery, located now nowhere. I have nothing to offer, I am not good with puzzles and combinations, I am not good with eating, sleeping, or speaking. I should not be listened to as I am not often happy. Have I ever seen something beautiful?


July 18. 2026 Often my thoughts move ahead, as though I had written them down, but I haven't.

I forget, I say again, I try and be honest. The man tells me we cannot undo all of the wrongs of history, what does it mean for what happened to you and to me? I feel confused again, I have a lot to say in my head and nothing to write down, am I perhaps still not being honest? to someone, definitely.

What insects remain in the grass? What is the analogy that will set me free? There is a combination of turns I must make in the mind, I make some and undo others.

A spider crawling quickly beneath the chair, piles of hot garbage under the sunlight, I go somewhere you cannot find me and wish you could. I crawled up your skin in the blue glow of moonlight, and when you asked your question, I felt you and I both open.

The gun is my eyes,

how I look at the people in the street,

I was the rabbit, Sarah was the rabbit, she hides, the woods become larger, she is lost among branches. The sidewalk is finite, the city is finite, the rabbit hides behind an object, this can be moved, looked behind, the shooter could come.

Am I now the gun or the rabbit? Who has taken over me? On a mountaintop, steel trees, we walked and searched for rabbits,

I became unsure what you've done to me.

I live many days remembering the smell of fire in the street, the red sky of a certain summer.
This doesn't tie together, I must admit to you that nothing ties together.

All I can say is hearing about the heatwave -- I remember the smell of leaving the house, stepping into the smoke that stayed for weeks, the haze settled on my car, the edges of the streets turned orange and between each building could have been dusk. It was the first time I did not feel real, that I lost track of myself. It was the first day that I fell out of the world, and gained something I carried since.

I have known secretly since I remembered the orange sky that I work differently now. In many ways things have never felt real again. I measure now, from the believability of the air and the sky, and once measured, nothing comes out certain.