Tamar hue brow
Like porcupine
Dark with
Judgments veil
Beneath its shimmer
Wild white dust
From the slightest
Brush, the flesh
Sinks in to meet
An abnormal bit
Of space—
Living genesis
For what’s to taste

For what’s at stake
I await for sweetness
Sake, but a tang
Of bitterness lands
Sour across my face
But its bittersweet
Intrigues and I
Begin to call at my
Sugar filled field
As the after party’s
Sly timber—
Living ambrosia
For what's to sliver

Tamar once again
Smile for liminal sake 
Arles heeds the seeds
righteous ache 
The love of one begs 
A cheery late
At the base of my spine
Past the unaligned hour 

Please, provide an eerie taste
From temptations test
Meets the sweet tamarind

The sour switched nerve 
Served my bitter muse 

Be wary. Be wary.

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a gravy hear and wear 
     splash sweetly our heel and mare

another was brought to trust
     with a kind bright for sound

tonight we lay for dusk
     for tomorrow’s promised bow

          sky welcome eyes
          who protect your drool

one is a sun hue of petals
     peeking through a muddy slew

two’s a handsome fellow
     who’s form adjust per moat

today we brace the salt-white ring
     from sting for loves endless blue 

          earth goodbye tears
          who soften grounds consume 

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Refer a friend

Lens Past Fifth is an experimental television anthology. Each piece takes a single episode from television and briefly looks through it.

From Latin respectus, from the verb respicere — “to look back at, regard,” from re- “back” + specere “to look at.”

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at least I can watch a fallen leaf fleeting finale
     an eerie scheme proposed by nature's alley 

               in line with its starry wheat

now I gallop in hymn along atop my Arles
and listen to the silent gear of grief's beast

          free as could be
          we gallop and stream

with every feat, the heart's hooves skip a beat
     a bit of sweat shudders my wrist seam

               in line with its wicked sting

unlike wind, the parting closes then forces might
     the best of wit was the rise of shine

               in line with its spirit wisp

for I had climbed by and by before the heat
yet in company, I tether to a humble knee
as they fall, I falter a stall for another

          free as could be
          we gallop and stream

each thought an image of wonder crimes
each time a tied tithe where ponder cries

at that stop, did we hear movement fear?
the wind muscled the earth to drop 
     a double eye match stayed forced
     focus forward our together heel

my churned chest wines and dines
the sun of truth mined epithet mused

mealing the fire with a scored bruise
     illuminated iris called irony moon

               in line with its welcome spring

          free as could be
          we gallop and stream

Good morning becomes the garden's bloom

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Refer a friend

Sweat marked her brow and worn her palm by hours of bitter toil,
as the surveillance drone passed overhead with its cuckoo chime.
Her hands were buried in the dust where garden plots wore through soil,
the pulse was marked by glassy metal in insect-ticking time.
Onions failed to thrive where caustic weeds moved out against the wind,
through every root her fingers knew the way scars knows their trace.
The dirt was bitter as the sediment the sea had once thinned,
she worked without a single thought on her etched and weathered face,
the morning light unspooled the dark to reach the old silver lake.

The village sat as flat as a coin upon the barren plain,
the commune square and the wellness hall stood open, stripped and bare.
The walls were whitewashed like the ivory of a mortal stain,
the narrow dwellings circled inward, still as the morning air.
A sameness governing each roof had kept the distances wide,
while the water to the north of all the gardens burned so bright,
a silver, unrelenting mirror watching every tide,
reflecting back the gardener in the flat alkali light,
fixed there within the twenty years of an unfortunate past.

She glanced; her iris drooled and held the sky like an open sore,
witness to the moment when the boy went cold and drossy dark.
She did not turn when local whispers hit the dusty floor—
she kept her eyes on the ground or her inner life's trauma mark.
The dirt beneath her nails was another jagged, bitter scar,
the village records held her as a subject to be lowly read.
A witness followed through the village shadow like a distant star,
her image stayed in the ledgers of the unrecorded dead,
the silence of her footsteps made hollow for the village void.

Silence pressed against her jaw beneath the cold and hardened glare,
settled in the gaps between the houses of the narrow lane.
A weighted ledger of the past the village would not ever share,
for no one sought to bridge the gap or ease the visible strain.
The boy lay gone beneath the surface, lost within the restless main,
drones maintained frequencies that pulsed inside her lower ear,
recording every tilt of head or her fast pulsing vein,
they held her in a history that could never fully clear.
the water threw its light upon the grit of her frozen shore.

She pulled a root that tangled deep within the waterlogged clay,
the fiber's resistance was a tension she could not evade,
her movements were a sequence that lenses tracked throughout the day,
the arch of spine and ache of her shoulders in the morning shade.
The soil pressed cold against her palms, a depth within the hollow,
a heavy scent of minerals and salt drifted from the lake.
The water was a presence that the roots were built to follow,
sat behind the garden like a mirror for a soul to take,
and drones above the garden held their stern and unblinking gaze.

She found one pale seedling in the bitter rows, still built to thrive,
something small, with thin pale leaves and a tag she had to bring near.
Its roots went into the chill below the salt that stayed alive,
while overhead a drone was sweeping close and hovering fear,
a fat green toad sat at the root and held its body steady.
The feel of it was older than any garden plot she'd known;
the toad held still within the root as though it had been ready.
Its roots had found the deep and ancient layer where things are grown,
she bent and traced the faded letters spelling out Starry Tree.

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UNALIGNED

The cuckoo is both a bird and a clock, and “UNALIGNED” holds both without choosing. The cuckoo clock was built in the Black Forest of Germany in the 18th century as a timekeeping device. The bird was chosen because its two-note call could be faithfully reproduced in wood. The clock hides it behind a door. On the hour it emerges, performs, and disappears. The cuckoo is a creature whose entire visible existence is the announcement of time passing. This is the creature the near sky calls to rest.

In numerology, 4 is the number of foundations. In “UNALIGNED,” the speaker holds two knowings simultaneously at 4:44 AM; certain that something is wrong alongside complete uncertainty about its nature. A self that has outgrown its explanations asks the only thing larger than itself for an answer before the liminal hour closes.

why is my spirit upset? 

The Thneed

Everybody needs a Thneed
A fine thing that all people need
The Thneed is good
The Thneed is great
And it’s just $3.98
Everybody needs a Thneed
It’s revolutionary guaranteed!
The Thneed is new
The Thneed is nice
And did you see that price?
Since the glorious dawn of man
There’s never been a thing to do what this thing can
So listen carefully
To all the wondrous things a Thneed can be
It’s a sock, it’s a suit
Boxing glove, parachute
A butterfly net, reusable diaper
An exercise belt, a runny nose wiper
A slingshot, a muzzle, a jump rope, a hat
A colorful sweater you put on your cat
Nothing else in this world can do that
Old or young, tall or short, thin or fat
Republican, independent, libertarian or democrat

In “UNDESIGNED,” the second line opens on “the fall of prickles thneed.” It isn’t the soft release of a piece of bark completing its natural cycle but, a manufactured object made from what the trees were stripped of, falling into the world with its edges intact. In The Lorax, the Once-ler casts it onto a beautiful woman in a moment of public frustration. Before the thneed, she is at ease on a bench, complete without enhancement. Yet the thneed requires her body to authenticate it. Ironically, one of the characters turn to her and express how the thneed makes them like her more. And yet, the thneed still depends on nature’s remnants to feel real. It must carry the memory of the tree even as it erases the tree itself. What exists is not enough until it is designed and commodified, yet the design still requires nature to make it believable. Humanity is inextricably the holding place of earth’s hearth and the ability to create is a spiritual gift humanity shares with nature. But when does creativity become unethical? It is when the foundation is stripped purely for design, and that, in itself, is an unbecoming of the world. “UNDESIGNED” begins on that earth, with a fall already in progress, asking what lands naturally and what was destined to fall.

UNDESIGNED

“UNDESIGNED” moves through the earth: autumn, trees, light on a specific afternoon, and ground underfoot. Ground is the noun beneath the feet, the verb that holds, and the surface the grind runs across. The poem opens in a fall that hasn’t declared itself yet:

was it my autumn leave
     or the fall of prickles thneed?

The speaker can’t distinguish their natural shedding from the artificial object landing on them. What the body might have released on its own schedule arrives alongside what was designed to catch and hold, and the two are indistinguishable at the moment of contact. “Leaf turned armor” is where that confusion enters the body itself. What should complete a natural cycle of release hardens into protection before it can finish falling. The poem returns to the same refrain twice and resolves nothing between the first instance and the second:

ground it—grounded  
     or bound by the grind

The refrain contains the poem’s argument. “Ground,” “grounded,” and “grind” share the same root and the same mouth: the hard g, the round vowel, the d that lands at the end. But “grind” is what happens when the ground stops holding and starts demanding something in return. The earth beneath the feet and the force that wears the speaker down are made of the same material. One cannot step off one without stepping onto the other. The dash between “ground it” and “grounded” represents the tipping point: “ground it” requires an agent, something doing the grounding, while “grounded” is the state that results. The better condition still depends on a force outside the self to arrive. “Or” unsettles even that. The refrain doesn’t choose because the speaker can’t.

by love dim murmurs a fickle
     leaf turned armor

What the body let go, the material world picks back up and hardens. The natural cycle of release is converted into a shield before it can complete itself. A sunbeam between trees takes up space and casts shadow from the same source. The beam exists because something blocked it. Presence and shadow become one event. The self moving through the world illuminates and conceals; which one the witness sees depends entirely on where they are standing.

Week II

recognition: From UNDESIGNED

rec·og·ni·tion /ˌrɛkəɡˈnɪʃ(ə)n/ noun.

From Latin recognitiō, from recognoscere: re- (”again”) + cognoscere (”to know”). First attested in English c. 1430. The act of knowing again; the identification of something previously encountered; the acknowledgment of the existence or validity of a thing.

cog·ni·tion /kɒɡˈnɪʃ(ə)n/ noun.

From Latin cognitio, from cognoscere: from the Proto-Indo-European root *gnō-, “to know.” The mental faculty of acquiring knowledge; the foundational process by which the mind receives, processes, and holds what the world delivers into it.

“recognition” is written from the ellipsis in “UNDESIGNED.” The earlier poem arrives at “another other side...” and trails off; its language running to the edge of what the material world can say. What opens on the other side of the ellipses is a descent into the interior. The opening posture is the head cast downward, the sole of the right foot firm against the ground, and the spine lined up to stall. The chamber (the ear, the heart, or the interior space) where a child first receives the world, was built to hope for the fruitful sound; the true frequency of a living thing before culture overlays it. The fruitful sound is the self orienting toward truth, creativity, and what the earth produces when left to its own devices. The embellished sound is what the chamber receives instead: the ideas that program people young, the doctrine and the social encoding that lands on a child before the child can evaluate it, the same way the thneed fell on the woman.

the hope versus what grows
is the cast that clays
     shade

To cast is to throw, to shape in a mold, and to assign a role. Clay is the earth’s most malleable material, the substance God forms the human from in Genesis, and the thing that takes the shape of whatever presses into it. To “clay” as a verb forces the word into a function it was not built for, the same way the chamber is forced to grow around the embellished sound. To cast shade is to obscure. To clay shade is to give the diminishment a body, to form it from earth’s material, and to make the shadow into something solid that stands beside the self permanently. The gap between what the self hoped to receive and what it grew, leaves the self with a companion it did not choose.

And yet, luring in through the nothingness, through the loneliness, through the accumulated absence of the fruitful sound, is the promise of arriving at two things that need nothing external to confirm them. Two ubiquitous true knows: universally present, always already true, requiring no “gaze” or crowd to validate their existence. Cognition, returned to its original function, finds the knowledge that was always there.

Part II of “recognition” turns horizontal as the subject begins to rest. The first section holds the vertical: the bowed spine, the root, and the downward cast of the head. Part II releases the tension, and the pain:

as I lay, I forget to 
lie awake

To lie awake is to perform consciousness; to maintain the vigilance the “embellished” world requires. To forget to lie awake is to stop performing it—the body moving to the ground, returning to the earth, and no longer holding the posture the grind demanded. In that release, a different dream becomes available: the back of trees, the ebb tide, and the inner being surfacing from beneath the accumulated sound. The speaker begins to recognize their humanity.

selenelise: a recount

se·le·ne·li·se

/səˌlɛnəˈliːz/

verb. From Greek selēnē (moon) + helios (sun) + the conjugative suffix -ise. To experience the rare state in which two opposing forces or truths become simultaneously visible; to hold contradiction without resolution. A selenelion in the self.

sel·e·ne·li·on

/səˌlɛnəˈlaɪən/

noun. From Greek selēnē (moon) + helios (sun) + -on (neuter suffix). A rare optical phenomenon in which the sun and a fully eclipsed moon appear simultaneously on opposite horizons, made possible by the refraction of light through the earth’s atmosphere.

“selenelise: a recount” was written for Valentine’s Day. “selenelise: a recount” opens as:

it was high time
for the other
eye on side

the other know
engulfs my
favorite maze

“It was high time,” colloquially means something overdue, but it reaches forward toward the high tide that arrives later in the poem. “recognition” closes with one eye at rest, “as I lay, I forget to/ swim with eye,” and “selenelise” opens with the other coming onside. But the lineation matters: “for the other” hangs suspended across the break before “eye on side” completes it. The delay enacts the other arriving into position gradually; the eye coming onside across the line rather than all at once. The image is drawn from soccer, where the offside rule determines whether a play is valid or dead. The other eye arriving onside means the speaker’s second way of seeing has finally reached a position where it can participate.

From the thneed 
     I’ve lost a sleeve 
but gained a 
     stream 

The sleeve belongs to the designed self that’s shaped for others’ needs. The stream belongs first to “recognition,” where the ebb tide already pulled back to reveal the inner being, where the speaker lays down and the current beneath the embellished surface finally became audible. The speaker kneels before the moon. The head bows again, but now directed at something celestial rather than subterranean. The moon is in its eclipse, both itself and the shadow the earth casts across it—a selenelion of one. The request is direct:

cast me 
    right 
  into 
my lovers 
  dream

Week III.

Flame Will Rise: From Oral Tradition

I. Oral Tradition

Tradition is back
from a twist of the spine,
a movement that leaves half a skeleton—
the other is broken and gone.

What once was spoken is no longer written.
What once was sacred is now screenshot.
Life is archived in tweets, in clips, in posts—
each word a potential weapon,
each secret ready for exposure,
each story waiting to be weaponized
by whoever finds it first.

The oral gave way to the written.
The written gave way to the recorded.
The recorded gave way to the surveilled.
Now everything they say lives forever,
timestamped, geotagged, searchable,
belonging to platforms they do not own,
curated by algorithms they do not understand.

No fire needed to burn the books.
No executions for thoughtcrime.
Just screenshots. Just comments.
Just the slow accumulation of evidence
that what you said is what you meant
is who you are is all you’ll ever be.

We fracture under the weight of performance:
integrity online,
whatever we need offline,
and somewhere between these selves,
the spine twists again,
our actual selves’ fracture,
split down the spine,
half skeleton, half ghost.
leaving us in search for the pieces
we lost when we agreed
to let our lives become content.

Nostalgia keeps me while the present runs ahead.
I search for the pieces of that lost spine,
trying to reassemble what was broken
when we traded stories for content,
when we became consumers, then products, then consumers again,
endlessly cycling through ourselves.

And writers? Stop writing.
A useless endeavor.
Allow our feelings and ideas to breeze through the air
as we sit around the campfire…

Where, in the circle of light,
a figure waits—half-revealed, half-shadow.
He speaks in fables about life,
tales so rich, so textured, so unlike
the mindless scroll, the endless feed,
that writers lean in, mesmerized.
The hunger for his gaze is immediate,
for the community promised around the firelight.

He tells them to add sticks to the fire—
“The flame will rise, and you will see my face.”
So, they gather wood, feed the flames,
desperate for the moment of full revelation,
for the face that will complete the story,
for the validation promised in firelight.

But the shadows only deepen.
Half his face remains hidden.
“More sticks,” he whispers. “Keep going.”

The writers burn their hands reaching.
The fire consumes the wood they offer.
Ash covers their skin, their clothes, their faces.
Still, they cannot see him whole.

Until they realize—
they are alone.
The figure has vanished.
The fire has died.

And above them, in the cold glow
of screens they thought they’d escaped,
the spectators watch onward,
holding sleek devices—
vertical, segmented, curved—
a spine made into gadget,
vertebrae transformed to glowing nodes
they grip and scroll.

They chant in unison:
“Broken and gone.
Broken and gone.
Broken and gone.”

This is the final version of “Oral Tradition” from my chapbook, Susurrus. If you’re interested in the evolution of this poem, here is the first draft:

II. Flame Will Rise

Oral tradition is the oldest technology of the human. Before the written word, before the clay tablet, before the printing press and the content creator and the Substack, there was the voice passing a story toward another voice. It belonged to the lineage of mouths that had spoken it before, and to the lineage that would speak it after. “Flame Will Rise: From Oral Tradition” arrives in late February as the week that inherits all the accumulated material of the earlier poems and asks: what survives the stripping? What is the story that cannot be embellished out of existence?

missing pieces have long grown souled 
     in a new uncertain body

The human archive is a collection of vessels, each one carrying a version of what was always already true. The missing pieces, the fruitful sound suppressed, the natural fall interrupted, and the resting spot the long time burn deferred migrate into new uncertain bodies. The liminal smile occupies the thresholds: between the left’s hard-earned knowledge and the right’s demanded tribute, between the jagged ground and the wet submersion, and between the political and the spiritual. The smile is the duality that does not choose. It stands in the middle and holds both.

The middle kind  
a liminal smile

The flame rises from the place neither side controls and neither side can extinguish. The knew in the poem is knowledge that has lived long enough to be worn into a different shape. It is passion that drives the speakers determination past a biased understanding of the world towards the development of their dream. And what waits on the other side of the idea is cornflower blue. Blue has moved through all six poems as the color that holds what fire cannot burn and wind cannot extinguish. The deep truth hue of “selenelise.” The dire blue of the moon’s phase in “The New Year: Camargue.” Cornflower blue is the color of the sky at the hour the earth keeps. The life’s lover waiting in it is the fruitful sound made flesh—the genuine community the figure at the fire promised but could never deliver.

The New Year: Camargue

The camargue is the river delta where the Rhône meets the Mediterranean. Wild white horses1 run there. Arles sits at its edge, the city where Van Gogh rented the Yellow House.

“The New Year: Camargue” opens in ascent and in grief:

by why I went wept to move gently above the head 
the mist laced my vision for a veiled cosmocrats friend

The cosmocrat is the ruler of the cosmic order, and the veiled friend is the one who governs the arrangement of things without announcing itself. The mist is the atmosphere made visible—the same refraction that makes the selenelion possible.

they say its phase will dire blue
its lint is the lent view  
     the warmth from amber dwells

The moon moves toward its most dire and its most true. Lent threaded into the word for what light leaves behind, and the fine residue that gathers in the corners of things when the eye has been looking hard for a long time. The amber warmth beneath the lunar blue is the earth’s heat, the hearth “UNDESIGNED” walked across, and the fire “Flame Will Rise” refused to let die.

figure eight diamond tried four right 
held left by three  
     a white kite reveal

The figure eight is infinity, the eternal return that moves through all six poems from the sleepless hour of “UNALIGNED” to the new year at the edge of the marsh. Four right, held left by three: the coordinates of the speaker’s own constellation, a self-made geometry written into the sky the way the collection writes the self back into the earth. The white kite is a surrender to the sky that the speaker has already claimed. The visitor from “UNALIGNED” returns here:

to seize the visitor’s unaligned quest 
aligned breeze felt back to sea

The mighty visitor that moved past the trachea before language arrived for direction. The unaligned quest is the soul’s itinerary, but the movement the earth was already inclining toward before the artificial. The aligned breeze carries it back to sea. The ocean that waited indifferently at the edge of “UNDESIGNED” is the destination the “visitor” navigated toward.

Retrospective

I wrote each of these pieces before I fell asleep. The first two were a surprise to me. I was not planning on posting anything until I finished the first chapter of my epic, Requite, but I felt compelled to. “UNALIGNED” and “UNDESIGNED” were both posted a few minutes after I wrote them, so I would not scrap them. I disliked “UNDESIGNED” because the middle section was difficult for me to get past, so I remember deciding to repeat the refrain to bridge concepts. By the sixth stanza, I realized there was so much more I had to say, so the next four poems were developed. “recognition” is my personal favorite. “selenelise” was a struggle to write, but I wanted to challenge myself. The “lies lent”2 wordplay was a gorgeous gift of a coincidence. “The New Year: Camargue” is a purely selfish poem. Nonetheless, enjoy these until April.

by why I went wept to move gently above the head
the mist laced my vision for a veiled cosmocrats friend

they say its phase will dire blue
its lint is the lent view
     the warmth from amber dwells 

tonight her curve's rounded curl
clusters the stars polite gaze
     their might a slight reminder of style
love's first fashion shines
      a bright path between the stars

figure eight diamond tried four right
held left by three
     a white kite reveal

the grounded smize of starry tree
my double ire may receive the dream
     of me, of marsh, of march

to seize the visitor's unaligned quest
aligned breeze felt back to sea
before this fire welts, I return to
     pebble not please the river's end

foresight quenched a rapid fire
passion wind around its head

as for my gift from marsh, I say,
"join me to flower dear Arles"

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Refer a friend

I.

the fabric lies upon the maze 
cast from my gaze
     deeply true to its bright blue

beyond its patch the path wonders
pondering a farewell of the crescent shape
     deeply true to its dark wound

each step—a wondrous feat
from earth's hearth births heaven's room
     deeply true to its flesh cool

the middle kind
a liminal smile

between the lefts—
     roll onto hard jagged knew
between the rights—
     dive under wet tithes' knew

there is no time to wait
     for ego's rise
           or
to swim for grim
     ebb time

II.

here lies the wind
who grins to 
extinguish fire

when did the strike ignite
     in courage
mint could freshen the blow?

there are no new or old stories sole
      why won't lies everbear?
missing pieces have long grown souled
     in a new uncertain body
     
the blue is truth's hue
the pain left on ebb

why won't these faces face me?
what more can I say?
what more will they mine?

it's time to flee
     before my faze reveals
my gaze fears their pain
     its birth formed from lies lent

a carriaged fossil made to spine
a dire sight
      for a pair of fresh ire

my life's lover awaits
      without cackle or scorn

wrapped as God's gift
     in cornflower blue

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Refer a friend

it was high time
for the other
eye on side

the other know
engulfs my
favorite maze

its hue a deep
     truth
its stunning dim
     wind

my forever steam
     hidden bramble
my always Green
     free from fire

the eye clears
     thought
from my autumn 
     haste

now that earth
     patched
my yearns...

will high tide
     return?
to root my
     alveoli's sigh

from the thneed
     I've lost a sleeve
but gained a 
     stream

yes, I am
     humble
to the curve 
     of her sheen

as she gleams,
     I plead,

cast me 
    right 
  into 
my lovers 
  dream

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Refer a friend

I.

a head cast downward
the sole of right 
feels feet firm 
plant along
the root of a
spine
lined up to 
stall

the tiny chamber
hopes for a fruitful
     sound,
but grows for
     embellished sound

the hope versus what grows
is the cast that clays
     shade

luring in, to that, another
other side of
     the nothingness
     the loneliness
     the never needs
but two ubiquitous true knows

hoping that the beam may see
     maybe free a pity thing
     from the cast of a starry tree

yet a leaf takes
     leave
back home to its earthly
     being

and the fruitful sound
     forever unknown
by the embellished sound
     forever known 

of the bound
of the bowed

that must watch all flee


II. 

as I lay, I forget to
lie awake

and I begin to 
feel for a 
different dream

for I've begun
to see
the back of trees

and hear 
confusion wind

as I lay, I forget to
swim with eye

and I begin to
feel for a 
different stream

for I've begun
to meet 
my inner being

and hear
ebb tide

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Refer a friend

was it my autumn leave
     or the fall of prickles thneed?

by love dim murmurs a fickle
     leaf turned armor

ground it—grounded
     or bound by the grind

a grand design for a sleeve
     made to fulfill their needs

only then
you may
or I may

feel the sunbeam between trees
     taking up space and casting shadows—
     revealing another other side...

or a spot where might may rest
     but the long time burn demands

ground it—grounded
     or bound by the grind

yet my form has freed
     from the haste of the autumn leaves

right in time
to meet the
cool ocean breeze

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Refer a friend

My near sky tells me its time for my 
     cuckoo to rest

Its taken hours, days, years to feel this
     rustling in my chest

it squeezes ever so softly
it creeps past my trachea

who is this mighty visitor?

I know its not stress
We don’t feel stress here

And the tears run stream
     free from heartbreak

How many years more for release
that may be released, until
it no longer pours out much

It’s past 4:44 AM and here
     I lie awake
     with this baby panic attacks ache
     where a sip of water is the 
thousandth drop upon a bound head

But I am not dead

So I know
     it’s worse than I fear
Because its more than I know

But I still know I don’t know
So tell me…
before the sunrise

Why is my spirit upset?

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Refer a friend

Lens Past Fifth is an experimental television anthology. Each piece takes a single episode from television and briefly looks through it.

From Latin intrōspect- ‘looked into’, from the verb introspicere—“to look into, to examine, to observe attentively,” from intro- (”inward”) + specere (”to look at”).

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inspired by the film, Everything Everywhere All At Once

The Aftermath

His eyes opened to pulsing light. Bodies pressed shoulder to shoulder around him. A scarf draped over a ceiling light turned everything amber, and the floor stuck slightly underfoot. A speaker sat on a chair and made the chair legs tremble. A cup landed in his hand, and someone laughed in his ear as a hand slid across his back. He took a sip and winced. It was sugary and strong enough to sting, but he swallowed anyway. Each time he drifted toward an edge, someone pulled him back in with an arm around his shoulder or fingers around his wrist.

“You’re good,” a man shouted, face shiny with sweat. “You’re with us!”

The man tugged him forward, and the crowd sealed around him. He laughed when other people laughed, nodded at jokes he didn’t hear, and danced because standing still made him noticeable in the worst way. He kept his cup raised. He followed a girl with yellow glitter on her eyelids toward a hallway where shoes spilled across the floor, and jackets slumped in corners. At the bathroom door, the girl turned and looked him up and down.

“Who’d you come with?” she asked.

He opened his mouth, but thought had already fled. Behind her, a voice sounded from inside the bathroom: “We’re full.”

The girl shrugged, stepped inside, and shut the door.

Someone shoved past with a hissed “Move,” and his heel caught on a shoe. A coat hook snagged his sleeve, ripping the fabric with a dry tearing sound, and he looked down at the split seam as heat spread across his face. In the living room, a guy with a red cup bumped him hard enough to slosh a drink down his chest.

“Watch it,” the guy snapped.

“I—sorry.”

The guy looked through him and turned away mid-sentence, already speaking to someone else. He stood with his shirt soaked through, the spill drying into evidence. The bass drove through his chest and his stomach clenched tight. The walls breathed him in and out, boxing in his lungs. The amber light stretched into streaks. His fingers found cold metal. The spin slowed. The music collapsed into a thin ringing.

He spilled onto tile, cheek pressed against the floor as his lungs dragged in air. When he pushed himself up, his shirt was gone, and one shoe was missing. His shoulder strained when he moved. He ran a hand over his face and felt stubble where his skin had been smooth, saw his eyes sunken in the brushed metal reflection of the washing machine. He lifted his hand and found faint lines at the corners of his fingers—creases that didn’t belong to one night. Three front-loading machines lined one wall, their brushed metal faces dulled by fingerprints and scratches. Around the handles, the metal was worn brighter, polished by years of palms. Above them, a blue digital clock hung slightly crooked: 4:44 AM.

He stood as the tile pressed cold through his socks. A stained ceiling tile above showed a hairline crack running corner to corner, darkened where moisture had seeped in and dried. The air was warm in the wrong way, used air smelling like soap that had tried and failed to cover something older. Somewhere underneath the electrical buzz, something low and wet sounded once. He walked to the second machine, where the drum moved with a harder rhythm. Through the fogged glass he saw daylight flashes, a long counter, people in line, and a uniformed figure leaning forward. The smell coming through the door was disinfectant, old paper, and the poignant sting of nervous sweat. He gripped the handle and pulled.

A crowded office with low ceilings and fluorescent panels hummed overhead. The air was dry and recycled. A line of people stood behind a rope barrier with a sign near the front: APPOINTMENTS ONLY in thick black letters. Another sign taped crookedly to the wall: NO EXCEPTIONS. He stood behind an older woman holding a folder to her chest, her hands trembling, the folder worn at the edges. She smoothed the paper with her thumb. At the counter, a clerk sat behind glass with a small speaker, her eyes on a computer.

“I’m here about my benefits,” a man said, holding a baby on his hip, the baby’s face flushed from crying.

“Next,” the clerk said, eyes still on the computer.

“I’ve been trying to call—”

The clerk looked up, her eyes glassy and impenetrable. “If you don’t have an appointment, you need to leave.”

“I was told to come in. I was told someone would help me.”

The clerk tapped a laminated sheet on the counter with one finger. “Appointments only.”

The baby started crying and the man bounced the child. “Please. We don’t have heat. She’s sick.”

Behind him, people in line moved restlessly. Someone murmured. A security guard near the wall straightened, one hand moving to his belt.

The older woman in front whispered, “They did this to my sister. Denied her three times. She died waiting.”

The man at the counter tried again. “I just need someone to look at—”

The guard stepped forward and put a hand on the man’s shoulder. The man flinched, pulling the baby closer. “Don’t touch me.”

“Sir,” the guard said, voice calm. “You need to leave.”

“You’re going to put us outside? In February?”

The baby’s crying intensified, a thin wail that filled the small space. The man’s voice cracked. “Please. Just look at the paperwork. That’s all I’m asking.”

The guard tightened his grip, and the man’s shoulder dipped under the pressure. The baby screamed.

He’d been that man—standing under bad light with paperwork damp from his hands, keeping his voice level so no one could call him a problem, watching the person behind the glass blink slowly and look past him like he was a pane of glass. He’d stood in lines that moved backward, where every step forward was swallowed by red tape. He’d been told to leave when leaving meant freezing but staying meant suffering. Every instruction, every polite dismissal, every waiting room glance chipped away at him, until compliance itself felt like surrender. And so, he braced against the invisible weight of all the small indignities, the quiet erosion of his presence, the dismissal of his proof, and for the first time in a long time, he acted for himself. He pushed past the rope.

“Stop.” His voice cut through the sterile hum. Heads turned.

“Let him talk to someone.”

The clerk’s eyes fixed on him. “Step back.”

He didn’t move. The security guard released the man with the baby, stepping toward him instead, body squared.

“Back up.”

He pointed at the counter, finger shaking. “You’re telling him to leave with a sick baby. You’re hiding behind glass and laminated sheets while people freeze.”

The guard grabbed his arm. Soon all he could see was the baby’s red face, the mother’s empty chair at home, and the paperwork that would be filed and forgotten.

“You’re killing people,” he said. “You know that. You sit here every day and kill people.”

The first hit landed across his ribs, and he stumbled into the rope barrier. He threw a hand out to steady himself, but the guard punched him again. His shoulder slammed against the wall and his mouth filled with the taste of metal. He heard himself yelling as two more guards appeared. One hooked an arm under his neck. Another pushed him down. His cheek hit the tile. He felt pressure between his shoulder blades, a knee digging into him, some hands twisting his arms backward. His chest constricted, the pressure forcing his breath shallow while every joint strained against the tug. The world narrowed to the force pressing him forward, the unyielding resistance of bodies and authority around him. Every second stretched; every movement required effort just to stay upright.

“Stop resisting.”

His knees buckled, his shoulders sagging, the arms hanging heavy at his sides. The weight drove his ribs into the floor. He gasped but nothing came in. His eyes felt heavy; the world shrunk to a pinprick at the center of his gaze. He gasped again, but his chest wouldn’t expand. The ceiling lights became scars. Voices stretched and warped. His hand scraped across the floor and found a metal table leg. As he gripped the cold, smooth surface, the office sounds thinned into a dull hiss.

He spilled back onto tile in the bleach-smelling room, gasping, one hand pressed to his ribs where his side ached with each breath. When he tried to stand, his knees complained, stiff and unwilling. He steadied himself on the machine’s metal face. A dull ache ran through his wrists. His hands looked different. Skin hung looser across his knuckles. Fine lines had settled around his mouth. When he touched his face, the stubble was coarser.

He turned to the third machine. The glass was less fogged, cleaner than the others; with the metal around the handle polished bright. Through the glass came sounds: a phone buzzing, a microwave beeping, the clatter of dishes, and the shuffle of feet. His palm pressed flat against the glass, and its warmth welcomed him in. He twisted the handle and pulled.

A dining room thick with synthetic lavender and reheated tomato sauce, the long table holding stacks of papers—bills, forms, envelopes sealed with yellow stamps. A woman sat at one end staring at her phone, shoulders drawn up, one hand gripping the edge of the table. Two friends stood near the counter, whispering and laughing softly at something on a screen. The woman’s eyes moved from her phone to the table—the scattered papers, the cups with dried rings at the bottom, the fork still lying where someone had left it. Her eyes cut to him, quick and sharp, then back to her phone before he could meet her gaze. But he’d seen it from the corner of his eye. His stomach tightened. He stood and moved quietly, gathering papers into stacks, clearing cups, rinsing dishes.

“Did you send that email?” the woman asked without looking up.

“I’m doing it now.” He reached for his phone.

One of the friends smirked. “He always says that.”

The other laughed. “He means well.”

He forced a small smile and typed as they watched. His phone buzzed with another message. He glanced down to see his name in a thread. The screen showed only a few lines before his thumb moved.

we need an exit strategy

how do we phase him out

he’s going to make a scene

His throat tightened and he scrolled, not wanting to, unable to stop.

he always does this

even she wants out

she asked me how to do it

He looked up. The woman finally met his eyes, irritation flashing across her face.

“You went through my phone?”

He swallowed. “I saw—”

One of the friends stepped closer, hands up. “It was just venting.”

The other friend sighed. “We’ve talked about this.”

The woman set her phone down. “Can you not do this right now?”

He stood still, the dish towel wet and heavy in his hand. A fork rested on the counter beside him, tines down, catching light from the window. The room’s edges sharpened. Blood pounded in his ears. He tried to speak and found no air. The world tilted off level. His hands went numb at the fingertips. The dish towel slid from his grip, hitting the floor. He took a breath. It didn’t go all the way in. He tried again. The moment stretched past when breath should have come. His body inhaled without result. His lungs sent the request again, then again, each one sharper, while his throat refused to open.

“I can’t—” The words collapsed.

The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t start.”

He backed away from the table as dark spots crept in at the edges of his vision, his hand going to his chest. Nobody moved toward him. Nobody touched him. The friends exchanged a look over his shoulder. He stumbled into the bedroom attached to the dining room. A chair in the corner held a pile of clothes waiting to be folded. On top sat a soft piece of fabric, worn at the edges. The color struck him as familiar, but he couldn’t place the shade of blue. When his fingers touched it, his stomach dropped. He gripped it, face pressed into the cloth, trying to pull air through panic. The fabric smelled of lake water and cold stones.

Behind him, someone laughed.

“See? This is what I mean.”

His lungs refused him. His fingers clenched. The blue fabric tore under the pressure, seam splitting with a dry rip. He froze, staring at the torn edge. His hand shot out and caught the metal frame of the chair, knuckles white around the cold bar.

He fell back onto tile in the fluorescent room, gasping, damp with sweat, still holding the torn piece of fabric. He pushed himself up as his ribs protested, his shoulder stiffened, and his joints ground with the effort. He looked at his hands to see more lines, rougher texture, and small spots of discoloration. When he stood, his knees popped quietly. His reflection in the washing machine glass showed a face he recognized but hadn’t seen before; it was harder and worn down. The fluorescent hum above him seemed louder now. But in the far corner, a flame, steady and yellow, turned the machines into tall shadows. The tile absorbed the lantern glow. He picked up the lantern, its metal handle warm from the flame. The light introduced depth to the scuffed floor. He turned toward the clock where the numbers still glowed: 4:44 AM. The low wet sound came again. He walked toward the door and opened it.

Cool air rushed in, wet with soil and grass. The lantern light spilled onto uneven ground. A fat toad with bumpy, dark skin sat near the threshold. It looked at him without moving, its body heavy on the damp ground. It croaked once, low and slow, then went still. He stepped around it and kept walking. The ground rose and dipped under him. Roots lifted the dirt into ridges. Moss softened some patches, slick with moisture, and wet leaves stuck to his socks. The air smelled alive—crushed greenery, cold water, and bark. Wind moved through branches, brushing against his face. When he walked too fast, a branch snagged his sleeve and tugged him back. His throat burned when he breathed through his mouth. His ribs hurt when he inhaled too deeply. His shoulder reminded him of the wall. His hands still trembled. When his foot landed wrong on a stone, pain shot up his ankle, but when he adjusted, stepping onto softer soil, the pain eased. The ground was springy in some places and firm in others. The wind cooled the sweat on his skin. The smell of damp soil filled his nose. As he slowed, the path opened ahead of him.

The sky exhaled darkness. The stars reflected like breath caught on black glass. The moon sat low enough to throw a pale path through the trees. He followed it until a small lake appeared between branches, its surface dark and still, the sky scattered across it. The shore was crowded with pebbles. Some were smooth, others jagged, pale, or dark. One pebble caught the moonlight with its pale, oval shape and thin vein running through it, dark against the pale stone. He reached out and picked it up. A primeval chill seeped from the stone, which held a density that belied its small size. He clutched it tightly in his left palm, the torn fabric still in his other hand. He lowered himself to the bank and lay among the pebbles. At the water’s brim, he watched the moon’s pale light shiver and reassemble on the surface with every passing ripple.

Mutable

She stood at her bedroom window. The stars were a sprawling, silver path she knew by heart—a map as intimate and familiar as the lines etched across her palm. The wind outside seemed to pause between breaths, as if waiting for her to decide. Something in her chest kept pulling, insistent, like a fishhook caught on a rib. She lifted the window slowly, holding her breath as the wood frame creaked. A draft of night air swept through the room, unexpectedly cold and smelling of wild grass and the hollowed-out silence of the distance. She ducked her head through, hands gripping the sill, and swung one leg over. Her bare foot searched for the ledge below, toes finding purchase on rough wood. The other leg followed. For a moment she was suspended, anchored to the room only by her grip on the sill. Then she released it, her weight vanishing as she dropped toward the dark earth below.

Her feet hit packed dirt with a soft thud that sounded too loud in the quiet. The ground held the day’s warmth underneath its cool skin. Small stones pressed into her soles and made her step carefully. The air smelled of hay and animals and dry grass. The night wrapped around her without a sound—the whisper of her dress moving against her legs and the soft collapse of earth under each step. The world felt vast and patient, like it had been waiting for her arrival. She walked along the edge of the path where the grass grew thicker. The wind moved over her arms and lifted the hem of her dress. The fabric caught starlight and held it briefly before releasing it back to the dark.

A boy from the neighboring ranch jogged up, hair sticking up in all directions, pants already damp at the cuffs like he’d been walking through tall grass.

“Where are you going?” he whispered.

She shrugged. “Just walking.”

He fell into step beside her, barefoot too, pants cuffed above his ankles. He kept looking up at the sky. For a moment, neither of them spoke.

“I like your dress,” he said, glancing at the fabric as it moved in the wind. “I’ve never seen that color before.”

She looked down at it and smoothed the hem with one hand.

“It’s cornflower blue.”

“I like it,” he said, but his eyes had already drifted upward, away from the fabric and toward the sky. They walked without speaking for a while, their footsteps falling in sync. The path curved slightly, and the grass grew taller on either side.

He broke the silence first. “I heard something once. About stars.” He gestured vaguely at the sky. “How some of them are already dead. Like, the star itself is gone, but the light it made is still traveling. So, we see it anyway.”

She stopped walking and looked up. The sky was dense with stars, more than she’d ever seen from her bedroom window. She tried to pick out which ones might be dead, which ones might be light from something that didn’t exist anymore.

The thought sat strange in her mind…things gone but still there.

“How long?” she asked.

“What?”

“How long does the light travel?”

He thought about it. “Years. Maybe hundreds of years. Maybe thousands.”

“Do you think it matters?” she asked.

“What?”

“If they’re already gone. If we’re just seeing the light from before.”

He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “I don’t know. I guess the light is real even if the star isn’t anymore.”

Real light from a dead thing. The thought sat in her chest like a stone.

The path curved downward and the air changed. Her arms prickled. Each breath felt heavier, thick with moisture. She could smell water before she could see it. The boy walked faster, pulling ahead, and she followed the sound of his footsteps through the tall grass. Crickets went quiet as they passed, then started up again behind them. They walked in silence for a while, the path narrowing where it curved through tall grass. Her dress caught on a hidden bramble, and she rushed to pull it free—the fabric straining for a heartbeat before giving way with a dry rip. She didn’t stop to look at the split seam; she simply hurried after him. The seed heads brushed against their legs, leaving small scratches that stung like whispered warnings. The boy picked up a dry reed and dragged it along the ground, making a soft scratching sound that kept time with their steps. The boy dropped the stick and moved faster, pulling ahead through the grass until they reached the lake.

The water lay dark and smooth, reflecting the sky. The wind moved across the surface and made small ripples that broke the reflection into fragments. The boy crouched and sifted through pebbles near the shore, hands quick, until he found one—pale, oval, with a thin vein running through it. The small click of stone against stone was the only sound.

“Here,” he said, placing it in her palm. “Hold this.”

The stone was cold and heavier than it looked. She closed her fingers around it and stood there, taking in the lake. The water stretched wider than she’d expected, dark and still, reflecting the stars in broken pieces. The shore curved away into shadow where trees leaned close enough to touch the surface with their lowest branches. Each movement sent a soft, rattling protest through the stones, the shore rearranging itself under her bare soles. Everything was quiet—just the small lapping of water against the shore, the wind moving through grass behind them. She closed her fingers around it and watched him wade into the water. It engulfed him to his waist, then his chest. He dove under, came up with water streaming from his hair. His face split into a grin.

“Come in,” he called, voice carrying across the still surface.

“We should go,” she said. Her voice sounded small.

He groaned. “Already?”

“We’ll get caught.”

He turned toward shore and started swimming in. He moved through the water with the ease of someone who’d done this a thousand times. The water pulsed around him softly, filling the silence with movement. She watched his arms pull through the dark water, watched the ripples spread from each stroke as the moonlight caught on the drops that fell from his elbows. She adjusted her weight; pebble still clutched in her fist and waited for him to reach the shallows. Halfway there, his head lifted in the water. His chin rose above the surface, then his neck as his shoulders strained upward. The smooth rhythm shattered into choppy, desperate pulls. She felt her back straighten as she watched his arms slap the surface and sent water splashing up in uneven bursts. His ragged gasps broke the quiet and carried across the surface.

“What—” she started, but her voice died.

His mouth opened. A cough, wet and choking. Then another. He tried to call out but nothing came except water and air fighting in his throat. His hand reached toward shore, fingers spread wide, grasping at nothing. His eyes found hers, wide and desperate. She took a step forward, pebble biting into her palm as the water closed over his head.

One second passed.

Two.

His hand broke the surface again—pale fingers reaching up like wheat bending in wind. She heard him gasp as his head broke the surface. His face emerged for just a moment, mouth open, trying to pull in air, but water rushed in instead.

Three seconds. Four. Five.

The ripples spread outward in perfect circles, one after another, each smaller than the last. They reached the shore and died against the pebbles. The surface smoothed. The wind stopped. The water became glass again, reflecting stars as if nothing had disturbed it.

She stood on the shore, cornflower blue dress moving against her legs in the breeze and stared at the place where he’d been.

She looked down at her hand. The pebble sat in her palm, dark vein visible even in moonlight. She closed her fingers around it again, tighter this time, until the edges pressed into her skin.

She lowered herself to the ground and sat among the rocks. The stones pressed into her legs through the thin fabric of her dress. She folded her arms on her knees and laid her head down; pebble still clutched in her fist. She closed her eyes and began to count.

One. Two. Three.

If she counted to one hundred, he would surface. If she counted slow enough, careful enough, the lake would change its mind. She kept her eyes shut and focused on the numbers. When she finished, he would be standing on the shore, dripping and grinning, ready to run before they got caught. They would make it home before anyone noticed they were gone.

Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine. Thirty.

The numbers steadied her breathing. Each one was a promise. Each one brought him closer to coming back.

Sixty-two. Sixty-three. Sixty-four.

She opened her eyes and was met with the glimmer of sunlight breaking over the water. Someone roughly grabbed her shoulders from behind.

“Where is he?”

She opened her mouth, but her throat closed around the sound, tight as a fist. The person pushed past her, splashing into the water, diving under. More people came, voices rising, lanterns swinging. The lake filled with bodies searching, hands reaching down into the dark, breaking the surface over and over. She sat on the shore in her cornflower blue dress, holding the pebble he’d given her, and watched them search for him. They swam and dived to find him until they couldn’t anymore.

When they finally stopped, when they finally covered her with someone’s coat, when they finally stood and spoke in low voices about what to do next, she looked down at her hand again. The vein looked darker and deeper, like a wound that wouldn’t seal. She almost thought she saw a gleam of light beam through the vein, but the tears kept coming, and she couldn’t be sure.

All she knew was that she could never let it go.

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What is itsrobenia?

Literature that honors individualism, metaphysics, and spirituality within an artistic exploration of the ocean motif.

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Purity, unity, clarity breeds,

A thousand white petals bright as stars;

Reform the path to root a living creed,

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The caretaker, the inner compass dove
After peace, current live flow within
Revise now, open your eyes to cloud tears

It’s silence pierces comforts little breeze
Each turning point reveals a means to grin
The caretaker, the inner compass dove

Still silence pierces comforts like soft seas
A steady pulse returns through dried-up skin
Revise now, open your eyes to cloud tears

Time slowly bends to match your loves decrees
Old habits shift and teach the heart to spin
The caretaker, the inner compass dove

Soft hands adjust the edges of the trees
Guidance returns in time for a big win
Revise now, open your eyes to cloud tears

New paths emerge where wandering minds seize
What once was fixed now learns how to begin
The caretaker, the inner compass dove
Revise now, open your eyes to cloud tears

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The end happens at the first leave

There is no need to water a starry 

Tree who knows its next best for heaven

The rest—let it rest, and leave it behind

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