Semantic Distance

the dark is coming earlier and i sleep in a bed that’s borrowed for the time being. while smoking outside i let the rows of houses across the lake become familiar in my mind. it’s okay if this becomes a memory.

for some reason i feel like i’m in the sixth grade. if i pay too close attention to the present i become 10 again looking at the light shining through the blinds, a serpentine pattern painting the shadows across my room. my brother slept next to me then.

i still can’t believe i’ve grown up as much as i did. i’m okay with the words becoming harder to say, write. it’s okay to feel as if typing prose is like etching marks into marble. does that make sense? finding what needs to be said should be difficult, even borderline impossible, with every wrong word a proxy for the right one. does that also make sense?

even then, i had no attachment to a city. none of the sprawling urbanism or the promised techno-utopia or the chloroplast hued foliage appealed to me. i never spent time placing my fantasy on a map.