Paradise Lost

 
It was at once that I knew I was magnificent 

As magnificent as the threadbare wings crowning the archangel's shoulder blades

As he bends and stoops and wrenches his spine toward the lowly planet Earth

Where millions of insignificant moments overlap into miraculous frames of existence that glitter against their decontextualized backdrop 

Down here in the muck and the mire it's important you know that Chrysanthemum can be a name or a flower and a dung beetle holds as much gravity as a failing patellar tendon

Snap snap snap snap crackle pop down the sidewalk past the place where a prepubescent girl tripped and fell onto her front teeth

And picked them up off the cracked concrete with one fell swoop of her open palm – 

Gripping them hard where life line meets heart line meets thumb webbing and feeling the jagged little angles of bone white enamel 

Now biting into brand new-to-them flesh. Lips sealed shut over the two gleaming openings, nerve ends (or beginnings!) and all, she

Breathes through her nose the whole way back to her parents, not crying, not screaming but gliding like a shadow tooth fairy who is desperate

To reconstruct and make whole what was suddenly broken loose. Rigid, but calm, so calm. She bestows her magnificence. Handle your shit. No whining. No talking, even. 

914 W Summit

 914 W Summit

I see her photos of saguaros dotting canyons 

and I can barely contain my jealousy

remembering the dusty dirt

and no shade

and trails of tarantulas that we 

tiptoed 

through to get to the mesa top – wait.
I’m conflating places but it’s 

the feeling of 

heat on our shoulders and age spots developing, 

crossing cattle guards,

looping back to a part of myself

that didn’t know anyone was looking for it.

It might as well have been

witness protection.

No clue where I was or when I would 

be back and not having a phone on me 

and being ecstatic 

to figure it out on the fly.

Now it’s real feel 4. 

And the pavement is white from either ice

or preventative salt

and we snip at each other

over complaining and then complain

about snipping and our shoulders are up

around our ears.

dad discovering ai

 

Email is the best way to stay in touch.

not immediate, every-second update typa shit – which is of course unnatural. 

not wasting paper to time travel into the past and tell your baby 

what you were thinking about a week or so ago. 

Email can be sent 2-3 times a day. it doesn't need response. 

linking to videos made by ai. attaching photos of the snow.

I think about the fact that in the future:

cleaning out my inbox, searching his name, I'll weep

at the ones I never answered. 

Oh boy

There’s so much good.

It’s simple – confused often for: small.

Can be subtle – confused for: only half-good. 

Really it can be deep and broad and whole and complete.

If I let it breathe.

It doesn’t always last. 

I was walking home with the people who Have Known Me Longest

and bumped into the neighbors you met and introduced me to

who are showing the beginning unfurlings of trust

and sharing their pizza and sending us texts.


And all of that is just almost too good to bear.

After taking a **brand redacted**

And falling into a 
medicated sleep for 11 hours I 
triumphantly left my apartment, 
left the building even. 
And left my daughter shrieking on the stairs
with her dad holding her kicking, bucking body in his arms 
and I went to see some friends. 

We did the same shit we always do, which is 
"omg your shirt. i love it," and then running 
an almost-circle around a park. Step step step step step step. 

Do we ever talk about important things? 
About how we have all hurt each other
in one way or the other over the last however many years.
One time we did. In a coffee shop. 

It felt like going to meet a professor and
being told you were failing that class and
not knowing if you were the student or the teacher. 

It was such a nice blue sky over the park.
It made everything feel easier.