no?
ok.

I’m not sure what’s in there lemme check. I haven’t bought groceries in a while, wanna go to the store? Or maybe not cuz we’ll have to figure out who’s going to pay and I want to be a Generous Person but I also don’t like to be taken advantage of so. Maybe we should just buy separate stuff cuz like, I’m not going to eat chips. And I want all these blueberries for myself. But I mean I’ll definitely share with you, I totally have this mentality of What’s Mine Is Yours. I’m not about ownership, you don’t even have to ask just eat anything. Hey did you uh, eat that avocado already though? I was saving it but. It’s fine. If you could just buy another one at some point that’d be cool. Like some point today. Do you want some of this smoothie I’m making? I don’t think you’ll really like it but you can try mine if you want. Yeah it has this powder stuff in it it’s really expensive. Yeah, you like it? Ok. I’ll just give you half a scoop to start. Can I use some of your almond milk? Do you have your own greens I can use for yours I’m running kind of low.

There is a window in my room that opens up onto a big field of yellow dead grass. Usually there is nothing alive there except the wind. I open my window to let the cold or the heat or the fresh in and nothing but that is what greets me. The sof speak of the see-through slow-poke morning air. Not quite wind. But this morning there is a dark spot in the high weeds, a rustling, a fun sort of urgency there, maybe digging but for what. I open the window and in comes the face lick cool. It changes the tenseness of my body. I shift my weight and watch the shadow of the rustling thing. I can see ears now, a long body.

I can always hear the sounds of the city moving, cars coming closer and going farther away in a symphony of guestures that cancel each other out in a constant flush hum. I can hear birds, too, almost always. They are not in the field where there is nothing to perch on, but there are trees I can see them from my window. The field shadow with the ears is running now. Not at a chase but. Not at a saunter but. The way it would run if it had a playmate but. It is alone. It is running with the wish of a playmate.

I used to set up my room like a library and, when I was ready for patrons, beg my sister to visit, to check out books. I would bribe her with my share of the Oreos. When I tired of Library I moved on to Store, my currency hand-drawn. When I tired of Store I made a classroom in the basement, printer paper taped to the sliding glass door as a whiteboard that my reluctant sister couldn’t read from the desk.

I tried a few times to create my own language. I figured it couldn’t be so hard. A system of 26 symbols. A combination of symbols to make a sound for every object, every feeling, every piece of each of our selves. It would take time but seemed doable.

I got bored when I couldn’t come up with words that sounded beautiful to me. I suppose I’ve always stopped myself a little short.