“Wireless,” “narratives in movement,” and “the color of air”

anyway, i keep thinking about the old laptop we passed around after school,

blue light pooling over our faces like a second puberty—hot,

cords under your desk, knotted around our feet.

do you remember that? the fan’s buttery whir, the screen

exhaling its pixel glow while we typed to each other from

four inches apart, earbuds splitting one song between us.

god, they were so tangled—the rubber lined ones

hoarding earwax, secrets, they tugged and caught

impish phrases swapped on laggy desktop calls, our voices

jittering like cicadas against the plastic mic grill.

kids now won’t understand what that click was like, i swear

light shifted the moment the plugs aligned, a small spark sending

minute currents pressing inward and tracing

narrow seams of heat as they bloomed where the metal met metal. remember?

only then did the static settle into a low buzz in our brains.

pretty soon we had bluetooth, though, and in the room

quiet spread thickly across the walls

rising and falling like a lung set loose from its body.

soon everything would move that way. weightless, instant and

to touch nothing became the rule, whooshing cleanly over our bent knees, untethered currents skimming overhead, quick as breath, wires splitting infinite.

video is so crisp now,

washes the screen into one mean plane.

xeric shadows thinning to husks under that overbright sheen,

you now watch them slide down, smooth as rain on glass,

zero softness left for anything that moves slower than its light.

a story begins like this:

rhythm heard // light shifts

in the smallest fault-lines // blink

a lip pursing in secrecy // room stills

the wrist circling an invisible ache.

minor tremors,

lanterns unsaid, // faint settling in the walls

lighting the corridors of what i once was. // air thins

in painting,

color rushed toward me,

thick strokes leaning into each other // green catching sun

textures rising as if the canvas breathed.

i followed the motion without knowing,

drawn into the bright turbulence // a car passing

that broke at its edges

into a startling black. // skin wet

in flicker,

a flame leaned, red supplicant, // candle lit

its body thinning as it reached.

i watched the gesture hold,

a brightness balancing on breath. // cool steela small persistence

held in motion. // incense, pungent

in spinning

of a coin gleam edged

first spherical, then // table cool beneath hand

tumbling violently, tighter, close,

heads then tails,

to a quiet collapse. // glass grated ear

i only remember

the after motion,

the slight rise of something returning, // pulse steadies

tide surfacing

in its own time. // page lifts

memory keeps dancing. // floor slick

it loops, circles, braids itself

brushing

past selves turning // breath blown upward

a song inherited

into heartbeats, thunderous. // noise dimming

sometimes i ask for calm, // a blink

for held like glass, for a single second uncreased.

but even stillness

shivers, // planted foot

a frozen dancer

waiting to continue.

so i let the movements write me.

let them spiral,

tilt, return.

their brief geometries // crumpled paper

shaping a map beneath my ribs.

not anchors,

but wind

they carry me forward, // weight leaning

elsewhere,

and in the widening hush // brightly lit

between gesture and gesture,

i gather. in the end, // deeply heaved

understand:

the story was never written // held in drift

it was moved,

as am i // body aligning

still in motion. // briefly gorgeous

once, you told me you could see the color of air. smiling, i pretended it made sense, and asked

how long you’d been able to. with a shrug, your gaze blurred, slipped into the space before me,

then twinkled back into i, glass.

***

you hold a cracked bowl to your chest, feeling for the sound of your heartbeat. touch the fracture

with a tenderness reserved for things only half-lost, thumb circling the break, calling an old

memory forward.

***

i saw you moving through rooms as if tuning them: a chair tucked in gently, a lamp tilted to cast

upon me softer light. after that, it’s only the faint rearranging of space. air easing its posture, and i

fall into a softer register in your wind.

***

we watched dust float in a shaft of late light, sun-thrown bar. you followed its drift with stillness,

while I tried to see whatever held your attention. the specks flickered, bright then gone, and

though i caught nothing of their signal, i felt the room pause and wait for understanding.

***

when silence beaded on the table like condensation, born of lingering heat, i dragged my finger

through the droplets and watched them split, then rise, my lungs following as they filled with the

wet, heavy air. breath in suspension, a surrender before the release, then warmth lifting toward a

vapored you.

***

all of it unspoken, all of it ordinary. small calibrations, faint as breath on glass, the ones that teach

you where to stand. i understood then, saw your laughter a soft yellow, floating away in

oscillations.