plethora

status report: we are not okay

right now, there is a typhoon en route to japan. it's a category four. it's a strong one.

 

in the ocean, there is a whale which makes sounds in a frequency other whales can't hear. the ocean's a big place, and a song met with silence can make you feel so small.

 

there's a woman who's walked five miles on ground as hot and as hard as freshly fired clay with a pot full of water carefully placed on her head. when she enters her hut, sweat drips down her brow and more and more flow down her face, her chest, and across her belly to her feet and all it took was one crack, one crack, as thin as a hair. she opens her mouth and it drips onto her tongue from her teeth.  

 

two love letters are slipped into a mailbox. on the back of one envelope, where the address is written, there's a number missing. it was a rainy day when the second was sent. the four looked like a nine. return to sender.

 

a small town, in the middle of somewhere, has just gone dark .

 

and the truth is, i don't know why i'm telling you this, but i’ve been thinking. how much wood can a woodchuck chuck if their tongue is so twisted over someone's name? how much wood can a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck doesn't know what to do with their hands?

let's try this again.

what’s the difference between a car crash and a lesson? the person holding the chalk.

stop. make sure to look both ways. hold their hand tightly. you only have twenty seconds. ten seconds. out of the corner of your eye, there’s several hundred pounds of metal that isn’t stopping. stop. push. let go. skin and bones alike crumple like paper and the light is red. everything is red. stop. stop.

it was the wrong place, the wrong time.

they had a watch on that day that stopped right when they died. it was one in the afternoon. the white flowed on the black. somewhere in the world, there are two broken hands on a broken wrist and a teacher is reading a story about car crashes and road safety and she uses the same brand of chalk the police officer uses. the truth is, whenever they see each other, they won’t tell the other they’re in love, but they are.

so they write letters and they slip it into a mailbox, but due to the rain, due to that one number, it didn’t get there.

there’s a moment that passes between the two of them in the supplies aisle. they exchange a look of longing, but not at the same time.

the boy, barely seven, and grins with a bag of pebbles at his hip. he boasts that what he can do can break glass, break skin,  when he looks at his mother, who turns, all wet from the day’s work, break hearts, too.

a woodchuck comes home and the woman he’s not in love with tries to hold his hand, but only succeeds in pushing the splinters in deeper.

a girl looks into the eyes of the boy she loves and she knows that the next thing she’ll say is going to hurt.

in the ocean, there is a whale which makes sounds in a frequency other whales can't hear and i can’t help but think about how lonely she must feel.

i’m still not sure why i’m writing this. take it as an apology letter for all the things that have gone wrong. there are so many bad things we do with good intentions and medicine will always, always taste bitter.

somewhere in the world, there is a girl with a heart that turns into a bowl of cold water every time she’s asked if she’s okay.

right now, at this moment, that typhoon has the strength to rip roofs and windows, and rip whole trees from the ground.

you have to wonder what it’s like to be in the eye of the storm, the calm, before everything else hits you.

right now, at this moment, there is a man looking at the earth through the porthole of a space shuttle that's about to rip itself apart. this is will be the first and last time he goes to space. a small town, one he used to call home, goes dark, and for the first time in years, its name falls upon his lips.