Birdwatching

Dec 05 2025

I have a story to tell you, sunwatching maplefelt huge curling branches. That’s a sign of reality, excellence dreaming. Dreaming once twice thrice, coniferous, arrival, walking through septemberoctober with a neocoastal woman and talking about this all, clasping gallons of paper, orthographic machinery in hand. Then, by bridges, rust iron over gorges, seeing you, shorter than hardwood and imagery and taller than our liaison had suggested. Moments of clarity and pure illusion, watching over the railing I am crouching slightly, to make myself smaller, as if to beg and scream, come on, look down and kiss me! You do not. We were peering out cracks in bridges, you showing the dead bird caught drowned through August flooding fifty feet below, sandboats and motorcolumns and remnants of flooding, you pointing out over through, hands over yours, me, curling into you as if my only source of heat. Below on the drowned beach gorge, grass, sand, huge twisting pines. Grey hair braided upon redcoat falling over hunchback, an older woman, seeking nothing. A woman in black, radio spire director, hair pulled back, tunafaced. An entrenched man, newspaper climber, very serious and watching, older, interested in mystical crawling creatures, wretched sea. Monotony, for some moments, then, crystal breakaway. The older woman is pulled in undertide, gleaming into the sunken pit of sand. She is gone! We exchange a glance, then run, you first across bricks, twisting round iron rungs, then racing down redwalking stairs. Maybe we ran too late, I frighteningly run behind you, unsure, what to do at the beach when a woman has been pulled under the sand? By the time we touch the third, fourth stair, she has returned, unspeakably and unbeknownst to us, escaped the sandcrawling grasp of the beach, racing hand over foot over hand over foot up the stairs clang clang clang clang clang, shouting, yelling about hormones and god, about eating too much chalk and how she must get her chalk levels checked. She runs out the park, past the October trees then the September ones, across boulevards and into her home, out of vision. We do not see this, looking at each other mostly. Befixed by hysteria, we laugh up three stairs, round iron rungs, across bricks. We look left, at trees, leafcaught and maniacal. Then, forward, the iron railing over the beach, right, a crystal meticulous white king sized bed, placed over gravel. We walk, smiling, in between the cowsized space through the bed and the railing, I wait for you to kiss me, you do not.

The next story, I am home, I am lemonwalking to study through January cold, arriving for my 7:50AM class about god or data or the world or whatever. Crossing through mudpaths, keeping on telling myself, I will not press that button, I will not press that button, I will not press that button. I am looking for a new moment to await, till I reach the outcrop. Redfixed plastic fake gravel round round round, curling round plastic grass, snowdipped and icekept. I must walk slowly to keep myself from tripping slipping breaking crying over ice. There are police, watching. Too much funny business on Thanksgiving, they said. No more running for the kids. What possibly could have happened? I do not bother asking. The visions of schoolbells are blurry, but I escape. When the clock hits 3:20, the mice leave the cage. I walk back past cops and sleet and sludge, melted by the winter sun, knowing fall is over once the mud hits the boot. Return through red fake gravel fake grass fake flowers, up through trees and sticks and pebblehills, cross real grass real path. You are there, unalone. There are other residents, chatting and discussing the Thanksgiving Insanities. Once we spot one another, you have excellently crafted and twisted a story bout knowing homeowners, growing up wild, whatever shit you know this time. I am daydreaming about an imaginary letter, something past Q and before R. I am reciting it in my head, so as to not forget the curvature of the shape of the text, each kerning specifically. The letter reads, I am sorry, so sorry for twisting your heart up and making you forget the rest of things, flirting you off your toes, then, once out of balance, promising a moon, then once mooncompromised and sunkept, wading myself back under grass, back to March, and taking that great blue nautilus out of your skin with me. I depart the crowd of enraged individuals, still screaming about Turkey Craziness, and I walk up, through mailbox to mailbox, my favorite journeypoint, where two biblical trees align as if they are reaching out for one another, over powerlines and roadways and yellow barriers, NO ENTRY, and DRIVE SLOW, WE ♡ OUR KIDS. I see my father, yellowcoated and happily bounding, complaining about Work and Content. This is ending, it is in a final stage. My feelings will dissipate like how orange leaves in trees slowly flash by, till spring anew. Spring anew.