day two, hour twenty-twenty seven. [sunday]

Twenty four hours later, I feel as though I’m floating in a pool of warm water currently.

yesterday brother said i just needed 24 hours and he was right.

how did he know? how often is he angry? I wish he’d tell me, maybe I could help.

But I guess nothing really helps, aside from a good long sleep and the sun and moon’s exchange

they laugh at us small people, all-knowing in the sky and so in love

i texted her today and the me of yesterday felt so distant and ugly

dumb like a tantrum-having child,

that’s really what it was.

today i held the child until its mouth grew closed, dazed and exhausted, ready for a nap.

it’s fine, kid.

waking up to a smiling man, dad coaxing me out of bed and onto the couch and into eating a breakfast

he loves me

he makes me feel wanted

everything seemed so red yesterday, so so loud

drums, brass, screaming.

today is green, color of concrete, blue, tranquil quiet strings

the concrete part is from all the buildings we saw on our walk

arm in arm with mama

she hummed and i asked her what she was listening to, and she played it for me aloud

i love her for that

so ready to share it with me

i asked her why all of the guy’s songs were so sad, and a couple minutes later she mentions that a lot of our music is sad

we laughed at that. funny, the things we come to laugh at. 

even our long history of comedy have tinges of sadness to them. I like that too, though.

she giggled and laughed the whole way and would do her little run to keep up with me crossing the street

we pass dogs, they wear sweaters. i feel loved. 

i get dizzy after our dinner and mama holds my hand, asks me what i’m feeling

baba sees my fear and makes jokes and continues talking as if nothing happened.

keeps me grounded.

i love him best this way. I wish he wouldn’t fret. 

but he knows to leave it to mama, he knows that most of what i need is in her hands, holding them, seeing them.

funny how this has come around to another love letter to her. 

god, love is all around me today and it was sunny. 

so so bright that mama wished she brought her sun glasses. She asks where mine are and I tell her I have superpowers, I’ll be fine.

it was originally a joke but i like that too today.

the train passed above us when we entered the first cafe and i don’t think i’ve heard something so loud in a long time

the booming made my bones rattle, and suddenly i felt very small

but small in a way that is easily holdable.

easily lovable.

safe and warm and kind.

that was my day today. 

—

day three, hour 78

many small things today.

The anger bubbled up this morning and in the shower, left alone to think of hypothetical conversations and responses to the eventual confrontation. What stage of grief is this? 

Whatever it was, it felt so minor in the grand scheme of things. As minor as the incident itself, as far in the past as my melancholic agony of bombastic proportion, literally only hours prior. 

around four in the morning I heard the loudest crash of thunder I’ve ever heard. It was the train but at hyper speed, shaking the earth and leaving us terrified of the next crack of light. Subhan Allah. It’s what we say in moments like this. Oh mighty god who creates such mighty things. He created us too. Does that make us mighty, too? Something in these profound moments suggests otherwise. We’re so tiny, and Subhan Allah is so right. 

Makes me think of the red burst in the sky last week, how I’m happier not knowing the answer to the mystery. I cannot think of the disappointment if we were to find out it was a firework, or a special refraction of light from the electric power or something. I want it to forever exist in that forty seconds where only we saw it, bonded by awe.

I asked mama about the thunder this morning, and she made a prayer for those who live in war, since “that is what they live with, habiti.”

Everything comes back to it. Everything suddenly bigger and more dramatic and fortune is guilt. 

I think I just asked what we were doing today after that. I never know what to say. 

I wrote something a while ago that seems apt: “a fireball or bombing wouldn’t feel or look that different with your eyes closed.” It’s all the same shade of red heat. 

I ventured outside today. it was nice. 

I offered to get us banh mi, fried rice, and a bubble tea for myself, a lunch run. 

as I walked, I listened to a radio lab episode about how AI developers are trying to replicate human speech and emotion for facebook survey responses, and the expert being interviewed said there’s “hubris” to that.

“who are we” to do such a thing? humans are unknowable to ourselves, and anything inauthentically so is blasphemous for even trying.

humans, oh humans. we’re so cute. so small. so full of love and other very very big things.

on the the way to getting the food I was walking behind a boy. he had black headphones on to match the rest of his outfit, wavy brown hair cut short and lying close to his face. he was sauntering and it was a narrow sidewalk so I matched his pace by necessity, terrified that he’d notice me loitering behind him. 

We passed a bench that had an abandoned book. I think I noticed it first, and while I was staring it down, intent on reading its title, he did the same. Within seconds of each other, the boy and I had the same idea. If it’s good enough, we might take it. I don’t even remember what it was about, something dense and esoteric. If he would have stopped I don’t think I would have, although I think I’d regret it for a while.

Because suddenly with the microscopic turn of his head I felt apart of something private. Hey, fellow pretty book lover. Hey, boy who has my dream sony headphones. How would you rate their noise cancelling capabilities? Can we share them? Can you show me your favorite song as we walk side by side? Our life together flashed before my eyes for a millisecond, immediately washed away by the thought that, once again, I’ll forever love the ideas of things. Only the ideas. For the reality washes right before my eyes, waving frantically as I sit dreaming of its abstract form, so much bigger and beautiful and frighteningly intense. 

I have real love and real friendship and once I am left alone I can only think that it’s not the love I want, the friendships not engulfing and forever-lasting and cannibalistic as I want. 

the funniest part of me writing this piece is that i’m now existing in an odd fourth wall dimension. everything i’m seeing and feeling is for the piece. everything is important, worthy and able to be woven into some poetic epiphany.

But to be honest, existing in that sense has made me feel more alive than I have in a while. I move my foot and I think about the connections I have to my body, my consciousness and being connected to my misshapen toes. It’s where part of my life resides.