the pocketmouse

I’m translating a letter that was written to me in 1998…

by the kindest man I will ever know. He was troubled by a recent death. He was also troubled by my grandmother who (still) continues to force feed our family her baked pastries. I wonder what the kindest man I will ever know is doing right now. I wonder if he’s thought about those letters recently. I wonder if he’s thought about the same things that I have recently: dandelions, first loves, hands, and how cutting your hair is the simplest way to rid of yourself. Painlessly. I think about disappearing. I think about the wars he has seen and the wars he has read about. I think about internal wars. Thought wars. Wars your words wage with your mind-speech is victory. But my mind can’t decide what the written word is, because it’s not loss. Not at all. I’m writing this because I want to acknowledge my grandfather but don’t know how to. I think of the man that died and wonder if my grandmother ever forced her pastries on him too.

while rummaging through boxes and boxes of lost letters and pictures and loves and relatives, i came across an old passport of my mother’s. she was eighteen when the photo was taken.

the worst kind of kleptomaniacs are the ones that steal time.

some nights-nights like these-i’m almost able to convince myself that i’m a body of water, not flesh.

i’ll let the moon move me.

everything is better and worse once you start learning how to pay attention to detail.

my grandfather was forced to cut down the fig tree by our summer house.

my grandmother says that he barely spoke to anybody that week.

 the minutes in between are only spent reliving the last and imagining the next.

my words have grown limbs and crawled away from me; i will spend the rest of my life chasing them.

i met a one-eyed musician on the train today. his name was leon, and he gave me a flower.

i like the moon because she’s reliable. i know she’ll always be there.

with humans, there’s no guarantee.

my cheeks were pink and my thoughts were blue.

i feel as small as my lowercase letters.