friends, it’s been quite the week already and we’re only halfway there. i have a comically large bump on the right side of my forehead (currently switching between an ice pack and arnica). my ego is bruised after an attempt at vulnerability (never doing that again). i was told to prepare for something that was going to happen next week but that thing is now happening tomorrow. i’m ready for ten straight saturdays in a row please. all of this is to say, be good to yourselves. breathe. drink water. lay down somewhere and look out the window at the trees or the sky or the facade of the building next door even if it’s just for two minutes.
this week’s dream is a tory dent mad-lib. using her poem “variations,” i pulled all the words that aren’t articles, conjunctions, or prepositions and filled in the blanks…
variation [variations]
after tory dent
Awake the voice to pray towards the quiet sun of your hope.
Awake the voice to pray towards, pray towards the quiet sun, the quiet sun.
Awake the voice, hollow yet thirsty, to pray loudly towards the quiet sun of your hope.
Awake the quiet sun to pray like a sinner begging towards the voice-covered hope.
Awake the voice, awake the hope, awake the quiet sun.
Awake the hope to pray like a voice or mouth with weak yellowing teeth, to pray towards the quiet sun. The quiet sun.
Awake the quiet sun to multiply itself up to the sinner, to mend the hope that sings praise of voices across the narrow, dark corners of its quietness.
Awake the hope that was once a voice to be among voices again.
Awake the hungry voice to eat as a hungry maw does into the quiet ditch of your hope.
Awake the voice, the hope, the quiet sun, to pray towards and against each other falling in and out, for then the sun, covered with voices and hope and quietness, will exist as if the voice were awoken at last to pray towards the quiet sun of your hope.
Awake inside the voice-covered hope for there to be a quiet sun.
Awake the quiet sun of your hope to dance inside your hope like a branch, like a voice of branches, inside the growing sun of your hope, whispering within the hope of the voice.
Awake the voice of your hope to pray towards the quiet sun that everywhere must be yours.
Awake the voice that is so loud against the quiet sun of your hope to pray towards and towards its quietness and soon the voice too will become as gentle and as infinite.
Awake the voice that wants nothing but to pray towards the quiet sun of your hope to pray towards the quiet sun of your hope.
Awake the quiet sun to illuminate, as if a hope covered with voices, onto the dark night and open into the universe, every quiet star, until all that is left is the hope covered with voices, a hope-shaped emptiness in the stars like a planet, like a child.