coney island

went to see the last fireworks of the season at coney island last night.

sound, sand, salt, and light; it's not hard to make me happy.

this was the best way the summer could have ended.

sometimes, life feels right.

"you can lead a horticulture but you can't make her think"

coming back to my apartment yesterday, i noticed that the bamboo that i've been keeping is starting to yellow and curl at the leaf. inevitably, these stalks will die. when they do, the grand total of plant casualties in my room will be 5 stalks of bamboo and two houseplants.

this is slightly upsetting because bamboo is supposed to be one of the most resilient plants out there. it is also one of those plants that the environmentalists are constantly lauding for being a renewable resource. all you really need to do is give it some water every couple of weeks and watch it grow.

but they're dying again. the last set of bamboo i had, i had kept for a few years before the inner core of the body began to dry out. the pale green bamboo turned a sallow yellow but not before the trabecular mesh in the stalks began to hollow and chip off.

my mom tried to salvage that last set. she took three sad-looking plants back home to brooklyn with her and made sure they received just enough water, not too much and not too little. she dropped little pellets of plant food to where their roots were. she put them out in the sun but not for too long or if it was too bright. the secret, she says, to keeping bamboo beautiful is to give just enough of everything but never too much.

but they died too. the old roots were dying too fast and the new rootlets that sprouted became tangled and instead, strangled each other to death. the bamboo could not sustain itself and dried into very pale, fibrous husks. maybe, my mom told me, if the roots had not become so damaged it might have been better. but i killed from the root; i have never been able to say if i gave too much or too little.

and now my plants are probably going to die again. when my semester starts and i find myself studying at my desk for long stretches of time, i will have the added pleasure of watching and waiting for the bamboo's end. they will become brittle and lifeless and it will be my fault.

if they do die (which they probably will), i don't think i'll get any more plants. not for awhile at least.

huge lapses in memory

okay, so i made this thing nearly a year ago, which reflects really poorly on me because it slipped through the cracks of my memory completely. but hey! i remembered today. props to me right?

so i figured since it already exists, i will use it and sporadically update with happenings and interesting minutiae. also expect some poorly edited cryptic writing, fiction or otherwise. maybe some pictures of shiny things every now and again too.

now to see if i will remember this website exists tomorrow.

Bitch Please

Maybe she had brown eyes.

Most do: brunette hair, brown eyes. But it’s hard to say, really. Memory is autumnal; it changes like hair, eyes. Like noses and mouths, like the way they snap their chewing gum and bite their lower lips. The way they fidget when touched. They are ephemeral like leaves.

I always come when the lights are out. I call for them, I ask them to. When I am there I always ask if I can tell them I love you. Each she is the same; they always say yes. I fall asleep cradled in their electric warmth, their secret down. When I go or she goes or they go, they take with them an irretrievable part of me. I don’t know what to say. When they are gone, there is lightness. There is no high or low; just quantity. It is not scalar: just settled light.

When I was young, I used to dig tunnels and fill them with water to turn them into canals. I dug trenches and pools. Ants never swum in them, they chose instead to drown. I collected details like I do now: white, stem, light, leaves, narrow or crooked faces. A thorn inserted itself in my palm once; I carry it with me still.

Once upon a time, I found a little bird on the side of the road. Its wingspan was stretched against the dirt. Its down was the color of dirt. Its eyes stared out from the side of its head. Words like frailty failed because it was dead; it was heartless. I could see the red trail where it left. If it were alive, it would have come when called and carried stems and berries in its beak. Instead, its head came off when I kicked its body aside. It rolled into a pile of swept-up leaves. Things could have been so different, I know, but I don’t know what to say. There is a spectrum of things I don’t have the right words for. But all those winged creatures fleeing south for the winter. They all look the same in mid-air.