I promise myself a morning of stillness,
yet within the first inhale
I’m scrolling the dark canal of headlines,
tugging each sorrow closer.

A professor once said cliché
is merely emotion we’ve rehearsed until numb.
I don’t remember if he taught at Occidental
or if I invented the campus to lend my doubt authority.

The phone glows—
a hole punched through the day.
Inside it: woodchucks who can’t chuck
because they’re medicated,
influencers hawking serenity at list price,
my own unfinished sentences
circling like fish that forgot the shoreline.

(Sometimes I think about
capitalist rodents
on selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors
and wonder if they’re okay.)

I set the device down.
Outside, afternoon ripens into cut-grass dusk,
one dove tacking the sky to the power line.

Hands bare,
I feel the ache of what’s missing—
a silence shaped exactly like my attention.
I press that silence to the page
and wait to see what rises:
a first shy word,
then another,
until the screen darkens,
and something that is not a product
begins to breathe.

Photo by Ricardo Morales on Unsplash

What do you want to say,
little friend?

We are in conversation
with everything we read.

I didn’t say that—
the poem did.

It moves my fingers
like a claw machine joystick,
slow and trembling,
reaching for something
already disappearing.

Is there anything else?

There is one more thing,
and it’s this:

You are the poem,
as much as I am.

And then it let go.

The pancake woman smiled
with too many teeth.
What a place to be—
this canister of blue and white,
bubbles threading the crust
of mud and grass and gone things.

Grab your furry tabby
and name it Little China.
Dig a hole and tell me what you find.
More nothing.

Potholes the size of moons.
We bounce like puppies
still learning to land.

Lick your hand and tell me
if you remember the taste.

With a line break, things start to breathe.

A pause. A shift in rhythm. A new idea, or the illusion of one.

This sentence is aware it is being read, and that awareness makes it twitch slightly under your gaze.

The next sentence tries to act normal, as if the scrutiny hasn’t gotten to it.

But you can sense the effort. You can feel it posing, just a little.

Here, this sentence is stalling, hoping something meaningful arrives before the period.

And now this one pretends to know where it’s going, dragging you along with false confidence.

Some sentences repeat themselves, just to feel grounded. Some sentences repeat themselves.

This one is short.

This one elongates its phrasing in an effort to sound more profound, though it may say very little at all.

Each sentence wonders if it’s contributing or simply existing to fill space.

This sentence feels the weight of those before it and fears it won’t live up.

This one breaks the fourth wall entirely, waving at you from inside the story.

This sentence is a bridge, but it’s not sure where it’s leading.

This one hopes you’re still paying attention.

And this sentence? This sentence knows it must end eventually—but not just yet.

Now the poem closes in on itself, aware of its structure, curling like a cat settling into the final sentence.

This is the last one. It tries to end well.

Photo by Charlie Deets on Unsplash

The Erewhon glows like a shrine
to wellness. $18 algae oil
reflects the early sun
in a way that feels… strategic.

I pass a man swaddled in a trash bag
like it’s armor or grief or both.
He is dreaming, I imagine,
of a door that opens.

Inside the cafe, someone orders
a bone broth tonic. She says
“I’m trying to heal my gut”
as if healing were a subscription.

A pigeon pecks near the man’s foot
like a metaphor I refuse to complete.

I feel enormous
and small. Guilty
in a thrifted hoodie.
I imagine I’m better than this.

The city is a novel
about a city. The plot
is gentrification with footnotes.
The main character is shame.

I want to give him money.
I want to abolish money.
I want to go back to bed
and not dream.

Some days the weather
feels like a system
designed to punish the poor.
Other days it just feels
like LA.

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You quit the job to make soup at noon and think deeply about socks.
You bought freedom and it came with onboarding.

You wake to a sunbeam shaped like Bulbasaur.
You go back to sleep. You feel bad about that.
You dream of supermarket sushi in Helvetica Neue.

Later, you stare at a tree and wonder if it would perform better as a LinkedIn post.

You do yoga next to your phone.

Pigeon pose, pending notifications—
A light panic hums like refrigerator jazz.

You try to write something beautiful.
It comes out like: “How to Monetize Your Nervous System.”
You delete it, politely.

You eat toast. The toast reminds you of Nebraska.
Or capitalism.
Or both.

You find an old Airtable called Stillness Database.
It has one record, from 2019:
"Felt okay briefly in IKEA. Meatballs helped."
You rate it 5 stars.

You remember childhood. There were frogs.

You walk outside.
The clouds look like JPGs.
You say “wow” out loud.
There is no one. Just the clouds.
(And the Cloud™.)

You try to rest but it feels illegal.
You try to work but it feels like pretending.
You try to be but it feels like buffering.

Some part of you wants a cabin.
Another wants a VC-backed content flywheel.
Another wants a mid-tier Wikipedia page about algae blooms.

​​You eat three almonds and are suddenly full of dread.
You consider lightly committing arson.
Instead, you buy a candle. It smells like “focus.”

You build a second brain.
You misplace your first one.
You scroll past a baby dolphin and cry.
You scroll past your own reflection.
You don’t recognize the brand.
Warped in the bright/dull luminescence of a department store mirror.

You fall asleep to YouTube videos of failed bands from 2006.

You dream of a mossy cave
with the exact texture of Blockbuster carpet.
You dream of a job that doesn’t eat you.
You dream of your hands in the dirt and no one watching.
You dream of activation codes printed on oat milk cartons.

Then you wake up.

You scroll.
You forget.
You remember.
Something like the light touch of grass on your cheek.
Then you forget again.

You Google “how to feel alive without accomplishing anything.”
The results suggest kombucha.

You wonder if you’re real.

You open a new tab.