In the heat, its grain will strike and split
Under cool, its sponge will adjust and slip

At the split of the seam
                                                            Left welcome home flute
          Right shaped or shape me home

The flesh renews despite the familiar
     A remote flow beneath love’s boat

Whether true or moat, a cup of palm
     Celebrates a treaty float

Maybe the flower vessel whose cries
     Reveals satisfaction or lows

Inspire the breeze asleep
     A wave
          My life’s
                    Easel 

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today my face is on ache
the vacations anthem
of precision

its bake tightens the stain
awaken my pace
     packed, tacked, laced
a prestigious face

then after, it clears
my dear eel
     slithers to save
     or ring from sting

then before, it rears
my dear edge
     cold to crease
     or ragged cries

yes, my love derm debris
welcome the soothe
     love guaranteed
     when the skins smooth

its only for the ray
or a fleeting moments
sake

tomorrow my face returns
to take leave
from space 

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• I got tired of it

• I stopped showing up

I’d argue that I stopped listening to music in 2010 and I stopped enjoying music in 2018. Everything after was people pleasing, stan behavior, and/or nostalgia. Music feels like that old friend who is still engaging in illicit behavior as I’ve evolved into a settled life. Years ago, one of my relatives called me a music box, and it was true. I was obsessed with music, so much so that I’d tell people I “felt naked” if I went anywhere without my headphones. During my teens, I would fall asleep to music. Then after, music became my way of connecting with others. I’ve always believed that no one can resist a good tune. Music is a sure way to cultivate community and intrigue. But music is like that one kind person out of a million that is surrounded by vultures. It’s that sweet friend that’s a bit self-sacrificing who is never appreciated by those closest to them.

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From the abyss, the upper drift becomes
     Cornflower blue—God's opaque flavored

Where the soul swims consciousness
     Depth flood common thought of one

          Hue lit blood run or drowned fear?

Where the feminine frees sensory life
Relief brings the air, a stubborn breath

From the sun, the lower strays becomes
     A sketched shadows entry wave

          Hue lit blood run or drowned fear?

The sight of one perceived as fluid
The sweat unfelt becomes overwhelm

   The rays stung the fleet into shadow
   The tides drone the rays into marrow

          Hue lit blood run or drowned fear?

                      The left leafs view is drilled fossil fuel
                   The right reefs view is diesel holding

                      Perhaps     it     best     to     be     a     friend     of     sand
               And     a     zillion     grounds     of     observant     or     expression

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Sisna

Horses move swiftly as the cavalry devastates the enemy territory it sweeps through. This medieval military strategy was meant to exhaust the land of the enemy, so there was no circumstance where they could continue. Of course, the earth receives damage, but eventually like all things it will recover. “Sisna: Chevauchée” applies this to the interior life. “Sisna” opens in observation, and the speaker witnesses their endurance from outside it with the same remove that “recognition” named as the pity thing.

at least I can watch a fallen leaf fleeting finale

Arles is the horse beneath the speaker and it is the city at the edge of the Camargue where Van Gogh rented the Yellow House, a geography already freighted with creative labor and the cost of feeling too much. The grief’s beast is received by a listening ear (its gear heard from within the ride itself). The speaker along with Arles enjoys the freedom of a liberty that belongs to moving through loss than against it. Each return carries the weight of lessons learned: tethering, faltering, and the forced-open eye. The speaker keeps returning to the refrain as a rider returns to a familiar trail, asking each time: is this still true?

          free as could be
          we gallop and stream

The indented lines—“in line with its starry wheat,” “in line with its wicked sting,” “in line with its spirit wisp,” “in line with its welcome spring”—descend the page like way-markers on a road, as the terrain changes, the speaker aligns each slightly more hopeful than the last. The rider does not stop for them; they are disregarded to the peripheral. Yet they form an arc from the indifferent loveliness of nature, then pain and longing, into renewal. Grief sweats, skips, churns, wines and dines. The wrist seam trembles; the iris is called to irony. The emotion moves through tissue, sinew, the horse-body and the human body made briefly in motion. The rider is themselves, the horse, the hooves, and the skipped beat. Riding becomes a metaphor for any pursuit in which one cannot separate themselves from grief’s carriage.

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

Crimes leave evidence, implicate a perpetrator, and belong to a record that persists after the act. Every act of wonder—thoughts that become images or feeling deeply—becomes self-incrimination. The speaker builds a case against themselves as looking becomes a kind of trespass. Each is a moment where the speaker's attention is commandeered by something external: the chevauchée that strips the land, the forced focus that holds the eye forward, and the irony moon that rises without permission. The speaker has accumulated evidence of their grief throughout the piece and “wonder crimes” names the cost. Tithe is the prior claim the earth or the divine has on what the speaker produces and tied is a bound and equal cost matched to the wonder. Each time the tithe comes due the speaker goes under to meet it. In “Flame Will Rise” the speaker stands at the threshold where water meets rock:

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

In “Sisna,” the speaker chooses submersion over the alternative, which is to keep rolling over the jagged edge indefinitely. Ponder cries is a chosen submersion; the sound of someone facing what the gallop could have endlessly deferred. The question arrives in retrospect; fear traveled the road as sound, passing through unnamed while the gallop still held. The wind muscling the earth to drop is the external world confirming what the interior already knows. After all that churning (the bruise, the forced gaze, the wines and dines of grief), survival turns into the beautiful. One may say “good morning” and life flowers:

Good morning becomes the garden’s bloom. 

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

From Old English frēodōm—“power of self-determination, state of free will; emancipation from slavery, deliverance.”

A confused Liam sits in a meeting room for an appraisal with board members who are uninterested in him. In his taxi, he uses the grain, a device that records audio visual memory so that people can revisit any moment of their lives, to get a clearer read on what happened. It does not look good.

He arrives at a gathering where his presence is barely tolerated. The first woman who opens the door does not expect him, and that indifference carries through the entire visit. His wife never once speaks on his behalf. He belongs in that home, and yet there is a persistent feeling that he does not. The friend group is unsettled when they learn that one of the guests is grainless. The host volunteers that information without her consent, placing her under the scrutiny of a judgmental room. She does not seem to care. She stays, and later hooks up with Jonas. Liam is not as unbothered. He confronts the discomfort that has been accumulating since the party, and from the moment he begins questioning his wife, the narrative casts him as the villain. There is a saying, if you seek, you shall find. What rarely gets examined is the need to seek in the first place. For Liam, it was intuition, confirmed by body language that the grain only made legible in hindsight.

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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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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.”

“Damn it all. Why is this happening to us? Beastly cannon, piles of corpses…we didn’t ask for this,” Uejirou, the gardener, laments to Muraji in the opening scene. The shadow of death follows, leads, and supersedes the characters’ actions, forcing them to bend to the will of the unknowable. The characters are complacent in their politics despite an imminent ending for them all. Cultural differences clash and then dissipate when everyone faces the permanence of death.

The dinner scene presents the peak of the cultural clashes between the Japanese and the Anjin. Moreover, a ringing similarity of toxic masculinity further subjugates the women in this scene. Anjin’s crush on Mariko influences his choice to stand up for her, yet it does not charge him to be respectful to her from the beginning. Buntaro (angry that his wife serves the Anjin) is drunk and humiliates Mariko because he can not take out his anger on the Anjin. In a world filled with war and death, she can’t commit suicide without her husband’s permission. As a wife, her life is out of her hands–a harsh truth Buntaro showcases. He proves that he can hit his target regardless of whether it is his wife or a post. The only respect he gives to anyone is what is obligated of him.

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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”).

shadow

Alchemy:

“The mind can be a powerful ally or your greatest enemy”—Katara.

Our opening scene shows Korra battered and bruised looking at her reflection in a shattered mirror—a representation of her convoluted sense of self. Suffering from PTSD and alone, Korra stays within the confines of pain. After many battles, she avoids the shadow of her past self instead opting to search for her spirit. Unfortunately, only the past is found and her shadow leads her to more battles (on the lowest scale); a fight club. After dodging an accident, a spirit disguised as a cute dog gains her trust by scaring away her shadow leading Korra into the Swamp. She innately wants to find her spirit yet she struggles with confronting the old version of herself that experienced incredible trauma. Her mind is disconnected from her body causing the confusion that governs her reality. Her readiness to move on ignores the severity of her PTSD leaving her in a confrontation with her shadow. A shadow that beats her up, chases her, then captures her with a chain so it can lure her into a pool of poison. Yet there was no poison, only mud.

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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.

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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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