message 18: insects awaken

May 24, 2021

Hey. What’s up? Oh cool.

—

The other night I had a dream where I was on a submarine to Brazil. It was twenty-five years from now. I’m not sure why I would need a submarine to Brazil. I’m not sure why we’re allowed to travel to the future, even in our sleep. I had the dream following my first anxiety attack in ages. I felt myself slip under the sea after a couple of hours hearing my heart in my ears. I knew much more Portuguese in twenty-five years. I know it was the future because I was sad that it had taken so long to achieve anything worthwhile, even a submarine to Brazil. I was nearly sixty, twenty-five years from now. My beard was white but trim, as was my suit. I pressure washed the playground plastic walls of my submarine. I could still hear my heartbeat in my ears, in my submarine. I looked at you on a tele screen: you didn’t speak Portuguese. Neither did I to you, nor anything I saw through the glass. I’ve never seen myself old in my dreams before. Maybe I’ll hear myself in the sea glass in twenty-five years, when I’m nearly sixty.

—

Anyway, some more stuff below. There’s some stuff made with photographs of buttholes and balls (not mine this time), so heads up / congrats. -Keegan

(sometimes it’s daytime wear)

insects awaken

I checked my car lights for the first time in a year last week, clicked the lock button three-four-five-six-seven times outside the city park, as if a raccoon would sneak inside and start a new life in my denim jacket. I wasn’t even upset when someone broke in last month to nab my headphones and rummage through my glove compartment. People need new sounds after a snowstorm. Experts say people with obsessive compulsive disorder do surprisingly well in a crisis. Everything has already been imagined: my kidneys have already run through liters of adrenaline at three-four-five-six-seven in the morning, panic rendered like lard, leaving me thoroughly fried. I’ve already felt the sounds of you in a snowstorm, already broken three-four-five-six-seven house keys chasing or else or else, already snuck through every panic park trail, already indulged in a river wash of each lardy fantasy with my raccoon mitts. Last year was such a great crisis that I finally finally slept—a great new compartment, buttoned in my denim jacket.

ii.

The new knife humored me, rendering fistfuls of parsley and coriander, scallions and mint into perfume confetti while you napped. Their oils sat in my old weightlifting calluses as the air filled with the neither-nor colors of the quick Texan spring: harlequin, mindaro, mantis. I whispered an old prayer into my hands. You said this season was called “insects awaken” in some parts of the world. I told you it was the new year for others, that we needed to celebrate the spring with a hearty soup, that it’s good to ramp up to your Jesus year, or else or else. The ash-e-reshteh sat as its skeleton on my countertop: soaked beans and dry lentils, roasted noodles and sour kashk. The kashk would turn the entire soup celadon, the milky jade of my dreams where my childhood folds into my future, and I’m suddenly both old and young instead of simply middle-aged. I whispered a quick joke into your ear. We put the broth to our lips: thick, like your breath as I shook you awake, thick, like the hill country air as bees hover around new blooms, thick, like our milky thighs when we entangled each other later in the neither-nor light.

iii.

You send me a photo of an inchworm, green as a tomatillo, two stripes on its sides. We spend twenty minutes looking at children’s websites trying to figure out if you can tell what kind of creature a caterpillar is going to be just by looking at it. A cocoon does surprisingly well in a crisis. Imagine being a caterpillar without a website. You tell me again the name of the season is “insects awaken.” Like cicadas, I ask. Kinda, you say, but it seems like everything might be a bit off in translation. Hell, I say, the Russian calendar was two weeks behind—imagine suddenly being two weeks older. Imagine waking up as the cicada thirteen, even seventeen years older. Imagine yourself going to bed at seventeen and waking up now. They say cicadas sleep for that long to avoid their predators. Who have I avoided after half of my life in the cool damp sand, left to feel the vibrations of your feet, the actual names of the seasons? Who did I think I was going to become after a big long sleep? Who did you think I was going to become just by looking at me?

iv.

Caterpillar silk coats the city park, catches my kneecap fur as I go quicker and quicker on the trail. Silk in my hair, silky dewdrops suspended in late day thick, silk on my elbows and lips when I strip by the river, silky grubs on my waistband. Aah-oop! I yelp as they inch across my belly. I take a lantern to my nose and see nothing; I took the car light inside me and saw more caterpillar silk. We sit in the car and peer at the caterpillars on your porch chair. Aah-oop you yelp as the cardinals split one for a snack, after we spent so long figuring out what it would be, aah-oop the cardinals say to each other as their beaks touch, knowing they have an audience, aah-oop the feeling of becoming something inch-long and lunch-like again aah-oop the sunlight between my eyes as the beak closes in a lardy crisp aah-oop our silk catches on our fur, each other’s snacks.

This is the season of nothing quite, this is the season of milky noes. This is the season of nothing sorted, this is the season they shoot kids again. This is the season I check my lights, this is the season I check my lights. This is the season I say I love you, this is the season three-four-five-six-seven times. This is the season the worms come up, this is the season the cicadas came back. This is the season I check my lights, this is the season I check my lights. This is the season you feel my mitts, this is the season I hold the light to your throat. This is the season of late jade light, this is the season my words become soil. Again my words become soil again. I feel your silk netting on my back again. Again I woke up with your belly in my hand, again you woke up with my belly in your back. Again my words take a seventeen year nap, again I see you in my sleep. I feel your jacket on my chest again, again outside of words I am here aah-oop! Again the damp hush the car light silk aah-oop!

(sometimes it’s better with blush)