x
we accidentally imagine
by andrew yoon
this is a book of mutable poetry. it exists along a
field of probability with an effectively endless number
of possible realizations. every time this page is opened,
a program generates an entirely new version of the book.
some elements change more often than others. the random
seed for the version you are looking at is 4164393.
because there is a seed number stored in this window's url,
refreshing this page or opening a link to this url
will render the exact same contents you see now.
if you would like to share or keep a link to this version of the book,
you can use this .
if you want to visit or share a random new version of the book,
use this one .
to link to an exact version of a particular poem,
hover over the poem's title area and click the link
which appears that says "fixed link". you will also
see one that says "mutable link" - this points to where
that particular mutable poem lands in a random new book.
try following the mutable links of a particular poem through
different versions and see how it transforms.
you can print or (if your computer has the ability) download a
print-ready pdf of this version of the book using your browser's
printing functionality. some elements of the display will change
to make it more suitable for printing. (you may want to modify your
printing settings to disable the automatic header/footer generation
most browsers do.) please note that as i make
improvements to the mechanics of the program, the content you see
here will likely change, even with a fixed seed - if you want a
truly fixed version, please use the printing method.
the code for this entire project is under the gpl3 license and is
completely free to read, use, and redistribute. the most up-to-date
code is available on github
here .
andrew is a composer, programmer, poet, and bad pianist. you can
find some of his other projects online at his personal website
here .
...
we accidentally imagine
by andrew yoon
seed 4164393
it is 2026. we wonder what to say next,
and the wind is still blowing.
we never seem
the changes until they've
already
they are well into
happening. we wonder why that is:
the clouds evaporating and
the sun coming out, the air
single row of bricks painted a
different color. who the behinds
through before how's and where
when whenever the
againagain
as we notice a
sticks to our ink, and
again where meaning comes
from. a million coins being
thrown every instant, fields
of possibility so
terrifyingly wide
eye so intensely we have to
look away
little bug
again. flying, landing, and
flying
things were
. we stop and
be
out in are begin with, going
straight
going with
days things like
like what things happening
someone
the same
,
back permanent
leaves
quietly they noticed
understood that to
. we
matter glance at the
wonder if eight yet
front of
remains perfectly legible.
make word
the smell of damp
from outside. a slowmoving
sound.
everything is so pink
remember why, but for
don't. “can
for a while?” and, for once,
it does.
marbles in a
the birds get their
the dark bottle
right back, eyes glimmering
so loudly
sunlight
flickerings or uncharged
water. how's
asking between colorshades
and
or
or anothersong
thismomentingly
expected somehow
reflects
walls and
surface,
other,
so much, some
and blindly drawn
paintings
from an old
laser jet
that means, whatever those
meaning.
systems
and our lives
breaking apart piece by piece as
we keep
things back together with
words and theories and poems
and cathedrals
architectures in the mind and and later
in concrete, we begin to
feel jittery as we realize we
haven't stood up in hours, this
chair and its arms a little too
narrow, pressing against the
sides of our skulls, plurals
and singulars not having so
much significance to
when the lights are
flickering so subtly. we pray but
don't know who we are praying
to
what we want, what we
want. fading. fading.
we are breathing. and we
are still breathing. one
thought and another passing by
in the street while we ask
ourselves if this is going
anywhere
focusing on something else like
the way the smoke is
drifting away from the incense
stick, or the sound our eyelids
make when we blink. is there a
place for rushing anymore?
the softmurmurs again,
reminding us about our breath: and
a little blue bird lands
on the windowsill. it is
singing.
we ask ourselves some
question we can't hear, muffled
because our heads are
underwater, this cold sensation
pressing on our foreheads while
we feel our socks becoming
heavy, cottonfibers grabbing
skin and dragging behind our
feet, cold passing between
our toes. maroon painted
walls and a thick sweater,
crinkling plastic bag full of
snacks. we notice it is becoming
later every moment, and that
as soon as we count one
number there is another in
front of that, always room for
another one or zero or eighty
seven or pencilcase
dirtyshoe, these power outlets
rusting over even though we
can't see where the water
could have come from
the carpet telling which
way people walk most
without asking why they walk it
so often when it seems
there are so, so many other
ways to go and that this way
isn't even the easiest or most
efficient or beautiful or
surprising: they are taking the path
because it is the path they take,
and we can't help but
laughalittle at how beautiful that is
not to say that one is better
than another or that anyone
is wrong for going the way
they do or that we think we are
better than going that
particular way to the couch, but
that we know in the end we are
going to go that way too and
that's just fine. it's just as
good an option as any so we
don't see a reason why not
beautiful enough and it's
surprising enough
may be the most beautiful
and surprising thing of all
at the moment.
it's hard to speak
sometimes. we are frustrated
ourselves for our
inconsistencies
allowing things to be just the way
they are and want to be,
always
taking action,
leftandrighting with the leftandright
once again wishing things
were
the coin had landed on the
other face; we can't figure
out
quite sure if that question
leads anywhere
the energy to say anything,
too
behind each
seem to go anywhere
positive, anywhere that doesn't
into the grass
place and we begin to wonder if
anything actually did
happen or if we had somehow just
thought it all up out of some kind
confusion aimed at nothing in
particular, cycles going back and
forth but never quite the same
way, always surprising
somehow and adding to the
confusion and lack of any sense
place, the feeling that we are
are getting nowhere.
so much
and we we. what changed over
these nothing ever really
changes. we. we that nothing
really are ourselves are
to
tangling wires into
these bizarre shapes, rugs
with strange colors and
melodies waitingly, taking deep
breaths before the speech where
we finally speak our
minds: "won't everybody
please, please stop this
cruelty? can't we see how
unnecessary it is?"
window creaking under winds,
some oil spilled in a parking
lot.
who's before and after or some
some behind throughingly, a
papers about electrical
engineering and game theory,
complex analysis and early
marxist painting; the
walls of this place have
shoulders that are
sagging, somewhere in these
pages an actual answer to a
question that matters. a new pair
of jeans, a holiday
decoration left up for months, a
lightbulb which doesn't fit even
though we could have
size was right at the store.
color combinations making us
feel sick and wonder why we
care about the dissonance,
why we should prefer one to
the other. we conclude that
we're all just bits of air
moving with the waves of some
song
banging on the wooddrums, the
thoughts and the doubts, hopes or
imaginations throwing fists at the
organ keyboard, some body of
loud waters, some
electrical structure groaning in
rains
the breezings, the sine
waves, the eyeballs thrown
left and right or up and down
or is that a sign of
happiness, of
peacefulness? who's to tell what's
harmony and what's dissonance?
who's to tell the words of the
song when each moment's just
a few bits of data?
see the picture from a
pixel, hard to find the poem
through a word
the arounds and behinds
lost somewhere in the mix,
the breath being exhaled
before we even noticed it was
inside our bodies, each note
rising just a little higher or
just a little more like dirty
wallpaper:
it happened. where the
music got faster. where the
blue became green, where the
light was switched on and the
newer waves began to
interfere with things and distort
the shapes, canceling out
or multiplying or
performing more complicated
operations until the noise is noise
and the signal is noise and
the noise is still noise yet
somehow wider, more sideways
and spinningly and
uppingly and backwardly, more
harsh and out of sync, now neon
colorlines and batteries, strange
gaps in the spiral
patterns but something about
them which makes us feel the
walls are moving further away
and the room is becoming
smaller, that one moment is
another and the second hand is
somehow different this time
around. we cannot help but go to
sleep again, this time with a
strange smile and already
looking forward to coffee. this
time with socks and a thicker
blanket. this time with the
windows open: and in comes the
cooler air.
quiet. we would
everything we
quiet
headache go
scratching pens and
a
observations,
puts
all of and the people
wonder
everything is
from the walls, distant
clanging of
breathe with
passing clouds causing these
little
and somehow we feel it in our
toes even though we can't
quite tell
chooses the pitches it sings
harmony
elements and
culminate into
as
were some kind of purpose
behind
where this leaf decides
fall in this rotting pile
from bad posture and some
strange
now the ventilation
slowing down into
banging; we notice
the ground but we can't make
do we
care? would
coin and
back.
glue, one falling into
and the smiles and the
violins
circles on
the glowing and we our skin
moment
perfectly okay never made feel sun
is laughing our arm and our
blood skin keeps pushing
trees we it
us in the absorbed by kind
pushes makes wonder why wood is
how their. we end a story a
last clinging rock another
keep of ink around
themselves but the temperature
around us, how the piece of the
whole room feel it and
don't think about don't know
if not but somehow don't
care and have more like the is
glowing music, and we keep see
every person object is
staring us, being absorbed
kinetic of dust trees of wonder
all turn out to be without a
last clinging some one same
the smiles, the hugs, the
and not to of we the
temperature changing moment sun is
landing on paper
is glowing and
feel skin
themselves or care caring about
have made more our keeps
keeps pushing trees around
are able for person, how the
air just turning away,
being and transformed of
we accidentally
imagine ourselves as having for
shaped box or a bird feeder with
a triangular roof or
something similar and we are
sitting in the front passenger
seat of an old car and someone
we care a lot about asks,
who are you?
another. we aren't able to answer
with anything except a held
hand, and we somehow find
ourselves caring more about them
just because they asked.
they can't answer either,
and the grip gets tighter
and they aren't making eye
contact but that's okay because
we aren't looking anyway
and we are both these
strange wooden boxes attached
to bodies,
eyes which still say so much,
eyes without laughinglines
which always find new things
to smile about
behind our ears, the way this
piece of paper falls on the
ground, the sound of an
about nothing in particular
and everything in
particular, wanting to want
everything and wanting to want
nothing, to feel everything and
to feel nothing, or at
least something
getting tighter and we remember
how okay it is, how
beautiful it is and how funny it is
that poetry and music
be the same thing after
sometimes and being naked is okay
too, that sometimes things
lead to other things, and
sometimes they don't, and
sometimes
they keep just happening and
they don't stop. they don't
stop
never will, so it
making sense to just accept
this and
smile a little but somehow
this feels impossible. we
do things we don't want to
do, blaming other people
for things nobody had
control over in the first place
and jumping to conclusions
and making assumptions
about other people and their
intentions and what they want or
what
forget
their grip is getting tighter
and that nothing is okay for
them either. we remember
that their boxy head is
crying and we have been trying
not to notice. we remember
that we are all the same
person born into different
bodies, and that this is a
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing.
convince anyone of or to
say anything in particular
exist the way they when they
need or stay stay the same or
need not need change need
stay stay or or or the same
instead want, just just just
even speaking not and it just
happens.
happens it: it just happens. it
happens. it happens just the
even it keeps just happens,
and it keeps just happening
. keeps keeps
on not going on what's not
going, whatever
, for our instincts we we
don't left. all these
different calling for responses
we are
why
know the joke
gestures amplifying
group of people who don't know
why they thought funny when
they half of were because
there every struggle if. the
sky seeming. emails just
keep
branching branching some to out
into, options options
we end up that first and at
are are
smiling. we smiling
don't know one amplifying
across
they didn't so
a single in this traffic,
a different behind.
but there isn't. if
the sky ceiling. emails
just ever situations
branching out entire stories
saw first now as good good as
as any, for go looking for
our remember all these but
at least we go looking left
them. all we responses why
why
when there things going, a
different jam, a different
struggle there the none of of them
just them ever
entire stories out
we saw and up, as as
first and saw first we
going with
as
responses, ways of different ways
of dealing are are smiling
and and smiling and smiled
social gestures amplifying
across a a group of people first
amplifying
don't know
once
this
behind every every piano.
maybe a different struggle
behind every note the jam a
different struggle behind every
note in the if. the sky like
just
. sky keep just. but
arriving and to be from people
possibilities fanning options
impossible to weigh.
options impossible to options
with the
least
ourselves
groove paint
how,
purpose
eyes a like we
outside
dents in the caused
these
foreheads foreheads, that
the
stinging sensation notice small
from ourselves caused each
panels
and just like that, the
page turns for us. the next
series of random numbers fill
the screen and we begin to
imagine dots and we begin to
connect them and agree and
disagree with them, relate to
them and question them and
share them. the page glares.
we glare. everybody is
glaring and nobody is laughing
and then one of us starts
laughing, and another one of us
starts laughing, and we are all
laughing and the
laughing and the inkdots are
laughing: the numbers are
laughing too.
we keep asking
questions like “will this make me
happy?” when instead
more interesting to ask what
it would sound like if the
leaves on every tree were poems
written on little sheets
paper and everybody in the
world began to read them out
loud all at the same time and
then
and the poems went flying in
the air all around and
everybody just watched it happen
in
can't
and then a lot. and someone
hugs the stranger to their
left and we all begin
laugh. we ask ourselves
another question we can't hear
because of all the wind and
poems, and that's
realize we
the answers anyway when
there are so many confusing
and beautiful things all
around us anyway. we
laughing and grabbing poems out
of the
deciding to
othertimes using them as napkins.
the wind, the wind is
laughing too.
stick of still glowing
incense is remember that stick
of becoming smoke smoke
smoke our
breathe we we. laughing isn't it
funny how how
when
coming can't starts back right
on cue lines the stick of
incense is glowing and somehow
that the stick so many lines.
incense smoke in somehow
becoming smoke in and. we breathe
. we help we
and so many lines. we
is still glowing and we
breathe we
remember lines. we lines can't
remember
many stick of
our lungs
breathe to
laughing how isn't it
smile when the
coming of these colors whose of
of these colors whose
names we and so of
lines remember the stick of
incense is still glowing and is
still still glowing lungs
breathe
and we
breathe and and we questions.
laughing isn't it funny we but
smile can't help how we can't
how
sun
breathe. we forget to ask
questions breathe breathe. we we
breathe breathe and and we our
lungs breathe and we we
breathe lungs
breathe and we to
coming back on cue sun of these
colors whose names we can't
many that the still smoke in
in our lungs still
and
and forget
the corner of the room
empty except for the little
grooves in the floorboard, we
smile. the moments going and
that we can't
off it, noticing just
inconsistent things are, how blurry
and arbitrary the
differences seem between things and
people and ideas,
painting can sound
seems to dry.
fewer faster and
mistakes. the mistakes on
outside going best getting a a
little, a and the conversation
heated while to pretend
outside mistakes. we do every
more. every repetition
getting pretend we aren't
listening, a little
outside while mistakes. fewer
conversation outside becoming we
aren't to pretend we to pretend
little
faster
little more accurate, a little
faster. a little faster. the
conversation going and outside
becoming
becoming with fewer heated the
mistakes
getting every repetition
getting a repetition pretend
how did we get here?
questions which keep making their
way inside our mouths as if
we never could learn from
the last time we couldn't
more
throw things at the walls with
some inexpressible anger
screaming and shouting with a red
face and bulging veins,
fists again and again
the door not even caring
door being there in the first
place
if causing the lights to
flicker and
smell like something is
burning so we all try
what we had done in the
kitchen last
remember, and even
remember make us shout with fewer
words, make us scream with our
fingers and pound harder and
harder on the door while the
wood is splintering here and
there and the doorframe
appears to budge this time or
that
and again and again
okay for us to ask now: "is
this beautiful?" we
watch the air just
take
sunlight and feel warmer.
throughs
again the time
circles of
relationships other
relationships seem to and fall way we
not not but maybe that could
thoughts again.. ideas and
interactions all these permeating a
smile. it all just just just
smile we smile colors we
happens
smile smile just a smile
colors and ideas spray paints
and and we all of of all
outlines of squares things,
outlines of of into making
themselves other
other and to the or intended
the into the the paints
paints and and interactions
and interactions
interactions. concrete... ideas
interactions.. spray paints
permeating while happens, making
themselves up behind geometries
and relationships pushing
up
relationships
dominoes direction. in the wrong
intended, sneaking into the the
that intended that could way
maybe going expected not
always the wrong direction.,
the thoughts again. ideas
and interactions. spray
all these colors smile. we
watch with a smile colors and,
all paints and and thoughts
again goals could be the point
.
direction., goals sneaking into
the thoughts again
these watch with outlines of
squares of geometries and and
relationships pushing buttons seem to
fall in not the or intended,
could be the the point..
sneaking into spray spray paints
and concrete, all a smile.
it all just just happens
shapes sort the geometries and
always seem the wrong and
direction direction
thoughts again sneaking into
paints and concrete, all a
smile. trangles outlines of
squares
up pushing buttons and to
direction
but maybe maybe that could
way we be the maybe into the
thoughts and interactions
silence
small voice humming and
laughing in the other room. a
crystal or some melting snow.
behinds toward while again
around where's or why's while
leftandright shrinking silently. a
wooden creak. a scratch. all
centers
and just being the way they
are. and we realize that this
is a beautiful thing. that
this is a beautiful thing.
seems as
we or while,, a
beforemaroon, a beforemaroon, the
see how how see slowly
moving these things all
the clock usual with those
those clunks usual with with
those usual working. suggest
a counterpoint the
nobody really wind.
or while
underthere and ideas
usual we suggest
seems to about the a while
to
these things all
slowly all moving slowly but
seems as to to be working as as
to be working
those and those fingers and
woodenbits
the
the a we or wayingsong a the
eyelids, underthere,, a eyes
again with
we
inside we it these things so
slowly
be be clock seems with and
suggest a stays and nobody
really care about the wind.
agains
to while behind
they not okay and
sometimes
sometimes and okay and
they
sometimes
sometimes from the
sometimes not okay,
happens the without not okay,
and sometimes from we
without even
trying. and okay, sometimes
they are, and sometimes it
happens
other
sometimes sometimes they are
to from the other without
one to the even trying and
things
sometimes things are
sometimes
trying. even sometimes things
are not
go go to the
are,
sometimes that to the other
without
go from one.
.
sometimes okay, and happens that
we go things
things
are
things not are
with the crowd and crowd and
same time in the hours
supposedly
this, vaguely defined
values being pushed on
everyone even on they are
understand what we ourselves what
we ourselves are
ourselves understand what we
ourselves we are saying still
rising still
thinks breath they are
possibilities,
roll up roll up our everyday
that there on garbage
probabilistic our up for their or that
down a pale dot
grain of
second hand
again
crackling,
and allergies.
somehow the the
making
slantingway
vibrations
are aware are
not
outside
thisthat second hand
and
because the longer we
stare at the details,
we are
matter.