A single word

Consume the show.
Gobble it up.
Glean whatever little meaning you can
and move on.

Clear the backlog.
The new season of Stranger Things.
Binge it in a day.
Forget it a week later.
The new Taylor Swift just dropped.
Listen to it until the new Beyoncé.
Listen to that until the new Kendrick.
Listen to that until the new…
Listen to this audiobook at 2x.
Watch this LinkedIn Learning video.
Queue up that thing on YouTube.
What’s happening on Twitter?

Scroll
scroll
scroll
scroll
scroll
scroll
scroll.

Look at this Reddit post.
Read what’s on Apple News.
Check your RSS feeds.
Watch that new show on Netflix.
Watch that new show on Hulu.
Watch that new show on Peacock.
Watch that new show on Max.
Watch that new show on Paramount+.
Watch that new show on Disney+.
Watch that new show on Apple TV+.
Wait what’s that actor’s name?
Yeah, they were in that thing.
No, no, the other thing.
We just watched it.
Yeah, we did.
Yes, I swear you and I watched that.
Yes, you have, you said you liked it, I remember.
Anyway, can you believe what they said
about Israel and Palestine?

You need this promotion.
You need more money.
You need to upskill.
You need a better manager.
You need to network.
You need to market yourself.
You need to monetize your hobbies.
You need to sell your art.
You need to hustle.
You need to count calories.
You need to check out this story on Insta.
You need to hook them in the first five seconds
before they scroll past.
No one wants to put in the time to listen
to someone who can’t capture their attention.
Trick them.
Make them mad.
Get them hooked.
Make them crave more.
Here’s another fucking Star Wars movie.
Here’s why it’s fucking terrible.
Here’s why it’s the best fucking thing
Disney has ever done since it invented Star Wars.
Here’s the first in an anthology series
you’ll watch over 20 fucking years.
Don’t miss it.
Oh, you didn’t watch Ms. Marvel?
You’ll never understand why Reed Richards
fucked this ox in the post-mid-credits sequence
of Quantumania.
Get ready for the multiverse.
Get ready for the metaverse.
Get ready for Spatial Computing!
Get ready for the new iPhone.
Write a review.
Make a video.
Smash that bell.
Like that subscribe button.
Kiss your dad square on the lips.
I wish my dad saw me as a person.
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Help, please, I am drowning
and there’s only so much time left
before I am completely forgotten,
and I haven’t been able to do anything
I thought I was supposed to do,
and all I want is for people to see me
and appreciate me,
and I just want to make things that say
something meaningful to someone, anyone.

Are you reading this?
I want to be done with this blog post,
but I am so worried that if I stop,
it won’t mean a single goddamned thing,
I won’t mean anything.
I am no one.
I am nothing.
I am so excited for the new Call of Duty.
I played 2,000 hours of Diablo IV,
and here’s why it’s total garbage.
The new Zelda is literally the best game ever created.
There is nothing more bae than swag, no cap.
You will never believe how many licks it takes
to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop.

Breathe.

There is no point in time where we have had more access to information than we do now. You could cut out every single possible nanosecond of silence and never make it through. You will never be efficient enough to see it all before you’re gone.

Breathe.

And that’s okay. Maybe it’s better if you just sit and listen and enjoy the art. Someone worked hard to create it. It deserves your full attention.

Breathe.

When was the last time you truly, deeply, unabashedly connected with something and you didn’t say a single word about it?

Breathe.

What is the most important thing to you?

Breathe.

Why?

Breathe.

Why?

Breathe.

Why?

Breathe.

(From Hot take: it’s okay if we don’t consume all of the world’s information before we die)

the unborn

the perfect people to love
if you claim you love Jesus
but dislike people who breathe

They never make demands of you

unlike the poor

they don’t resent your condescension

unlike widows

they don’t ask you to question patriarchy

unlike orphans

they don’t need money, education, or childcare

unlike aliens

they don’t bring all that racial, cultural
and religious baggage that you dislike

they allow you to feel good about yourself
without any work

and when they are born
you can forget about them.

It’s almost as if by being born
they have died

to you.

(From Dave Barnhart on Facebook, June 2018)

The Clair de Crépuscule

But to-night I’ve been polite to a friend—
have guzzled vin ordinaire
+ puffed a Villar y Villar
and opened my dusty tobacco-jar—

and my nerves, as a consequence,
are a bit uneasy;
the thought of that soft star
comes on me most benignly.

To-morrow, however, I shall reassume
the scrutiny of things as they are.

(From Wallace Steven’s journal, October 1903)

cats tendtoexist

cats
tendtoexist in your

per
iph

eral
(vis)
(ion
and
after (a while
you move)
around the house

in a manner that
accommodates
the expectation of their

PRESENCE

waiting
to trip

you

on the stairs
or suddenlyemerge
from no!where
andstart s l o w w a l k i n g
in
fro
/nt
of
you

as you try
to get
from room

to
room

(Remix of Like Ghosts)

She was the house

She is
with us,
she is
of us—
the eternal
stillness
is
but a form
of her love.

(Henry James writing about his mother, 1882)

Turned to glass

The bodies in the container
partially thawed, moved,
and then froze again

— stuck to the capsule
like a child’s tongue
to a cold lamp post.

Eventually the bodies
had to be thawed to unstick,
re-frozen and put back in.

Cracks appeared,
cutting through the skin
and subcutaneous fat,

all the way down
to the body wall or
muscle surface beneath.

The organs were cracked.
The spinal cord was snapped
and the heart — was fractured.

(From Horror Stories of Cryonics)

The last supper

Looking back,
I think the regret about the fruit salad
was stronger than fear of all being over.
Nella Last

All the day, the tinkle of glass
being swept up and dumped in ash-bins
like wind-bells in a temple,
together with the knock-knock
as anything handy was tacked
in place over gaping windows.

I look at a tin of fruit longingly,
now that fruit is so scarce.
Little sparrows had died as they crouched.
It looked as if they had bent
their little heads in prayer.
Not one falleth that He does not see.

Poles, Czechs, Greeks, all sparrows.
I’ve opened the tin of fruit salad,
and put my best embroidered cloth on,
and made an egg-whip instead of cream.
I’ll not take my clothes off tonight.
I’ll give the animals an aspirin.

(from Nella Last’s World War II diary, 1941)

panting flowing breathless

Heavy, tormented waves,
tossing in the rising tide
and smashing on the beach in white surf
and masses of phosphorous.

The twilight of a dark night at sea.
Vivid jags of lightening
showing us to each other.

Out until up to our shoulders,
the waves dashed over our heads.
Swimming, swimming out to infinity—
racing in under the pulsing water
to the solitary light on shore.

Swimming far out we slipped off
our bathing suits and let
the water caress our naked forms.
But the heavy waves swept us in.

(Alice Dunbar-Nelson’s diary, 1929)

The last ten days of Ramadan

I never said a proper goodbye
to the city where I grew up.

On the second day
I phoned my cousins.
We spoke about cancelled exams
and pilgrims stuck in Mecca.

By day four
my cousin could barely speak;
the family were all on the ground floor,
she was too afraid to shower.

A trousseau for a bride,
red slippery glittery tobes,
perfumes, dainty sandals.
Kilos of pistachios,
bags of sugared almonds,
boxes of Turkish delight –
all this would be looted.

The sky over Khartoum
was lit with savage fire,
smoke billowing at dawn.

On Eid day
I dragged myself to the mosque.
I hugged other women and cried.

Eid mubarak.

This time, they didn’t pick up.

(From 5 Sudanese writers on the country’s nightmare conflict)