we accidentally imagine

by andrew yoon

seed 702036

it is 2021. we wonder what to say next, and the wind is still blowing.

eighteen.

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systems all around us
and our lives fracturing
breaking apart piece by piece as
we keep trying to glue
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 us now
when the lights are
flickering so subtly. we pray but
don't know who we are praying
to who we are praying for,
what we want, what we should
want. fading. fading.

twenty.

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twenty one.

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we wonder what would
make us happy, what would
make this headache go away
which keeps distracting us
from everything going on the
scratching pens and observations,
a quote out of context we
leave the incense burning
when we go to sleep even
though we know it's a fire
hazard and it puts our lives in
danger and the lives of all the
other people living above and
below us, and all of the people
we know and the people who
care about what happens to us
even though we never asked
them to. we wonder why it
should matter that something
happens to anyone, we wonder why
we care. and everything is
so quiet.

fifteen.

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that now looking for our
left responses, different.
we are smiling and and and
why? these a of people who
they was because all in this
traffic behind every struggle
behind. maybe if there was more
time but the the emails them
real them, all these
situations stories

seven.

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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?" some glass
window creaking under winds,
some oil spilled in a parking
lot. how again the why's and
who's before and after or some
some behind throughingly, a
manual for writers of research
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 sworn the
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 we can't hear: now
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 particles trapped in
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? hard to
see the picture from a
pixel, hard to find the poem
through a word a letter an inkdot
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: we ask each other where
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 not
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.

six.

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silence and quiet now. a
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 things happening all
around, things just happening
and just being the way they
are. and we realize that this
is a beautiful thing. that
this is a beautiful thing.

seventeen.

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marbles in a glass bowl,
not going anywhere in
particular seeming to wonder where
the birds get their
melodies, their strange rhythms
tinkling or rubbing cardboard.
the dark bottle looking
right back, eyes glimmering
so loudly with the
sunlight or fluorescent
flickerings or uncharged
batteries. the lithium looking for
water. how's this different?
asking between colorshades
and subject matter like it
were important or something
or something or something
or anothersong
thismomentingly or an old box of cereal,
casting shadows longer than
expected somehow while the light
reflects in its own color onto the
walls and the nearby desk
surface, papers scattered from
months before piled over each
other, some important some not
so much, some with colors
and blindly drawn
paintings and some printed out
from an old black and white
laser jet printer, whatever
that means, whatever those
meaning.

eight.

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we accidentally
imagine ourselves as having for
a head this strangely
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? and we
think for a minute, and then
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, heads without
eyes which still say so much,
eyes without laughinglines
which always find new things
to smile about an itch
behind our ears, the way this
piece of paper falls on the
ground, the sound of an overhead
lamp switching on laughing
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 the grip
getting tighter and we remember
how okay it is, how
beautiful it is and how funny it is
that poetry and music might
be the same thing after
all, that hiding is okay
sometimes and being naked is okay
too, that sometimes things
lead to other things, and
sometimes they don't, and
sometimes things just happen and
they keep just happening and
they don't stop. they don't
stop and it seems like they
never will, so it starts
making sense to just accept
this and close our eyes and
smile a little but somehow
this feels impossible. we
get frustrated and start to
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 they are afraid of. we
forget that they are us, that
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.

three.

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how did we get here? the
questions which keep making their
way inside our mouths as if
we never could learn from
the last time we couldn't
answer and instead only become
more unhappy and began to
throw things at the walls with
some inexpressible anger
screaming and shouting with a red
face and bulging veins,
fists again and again against
the door not even caring
what's on the other side, too
caught up with the idea of the
door being there in the first
place another why and another
if causing the lights to
flicker and the stove to begin to
smell like something is
burning so we all try to remember
what we had done in the
kitchen last but we can't
remember, and even the attempts to
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 time or this time again
and again and again

four.

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it's hard to speak
sometimes. we are frustrated with
ourselves for our
inconsistencies once at peace and
allowing things to be just the way
they are and want to be,
always taking action and never
taking action,
leftandrighting with the leftandright
once again wishing things
were a different way or that
the coin had landed on the
other face; we can't figure
out who we are, and we aren't
quite sure if that question
leads anywhere hard to find
the energy to say anything,
too many responses waiting
behind each option which never
seem to go anywhere
positive, anywhere that doesn't
hurt anybody or dissipate
into the grass as if nothing
had happened in the first
place and we begin to wonder if
anything actually did or does
happen or if we had somehow just
thought it all up out of some kind
of desperation and
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 of
place, the feeling that we are
nowhere and the feeling that we
are getting nowhere.

one.

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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 paper is
laughing and the inkdots are
laughing: the numbers are
laughing too.

twenty seven.

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that the incense is
somehow it might the warm that
outside. sensation feel this
this now we notice notice
small dents from from caused
each groove what came groove
panels panels paint every
scratch every freckle and of
paint every freckle on every
of someone lot someone we
care a the wires behind in the
wires behind the it on, if on
their of happen somehow
somehow feel our bodies, that it
the outside to windows
stinging we breathe feel this
dents in floorboard and
ourselves where from each what
each groove what and and of
paint freckle lot about, a lot
in behind the desk if sort
of their just happen on
their own we close are our
bodies, that it enough outside
it enough to open the
enough now open

twenty three.

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, and how cars. we it all
turn of a joke, a these bricks
clinging rock falling the same
bucket smiles, the the timer
keeps ticking best
pretending of themselves while
from the we notice the us,
this piece of paper and the we
can somehow feel about.
repeating themselves don't and
about that would more happy or
feel more human, more like
the sun arm and our skin and
the wind keeps, and we to us
every is doing, how tones
staring turning away by the
floorboards kinetic which pushes
bits of dust and makes wonder
why wood, trees how cars if
in the turn out a joke
without a without these bricks
clinging to rock glue one after
and facts bucket, the
smiles the, we keep doing
notice circles ink going
around hear the other room and
can't the temperature
changing piece of paper and how
and feel skin we don't think
we repeating themselves
we don't care and that's
okay caring have more human,
glowing through our music, a
little smiling and in an
instant are to see is sort moves
around the being into kinetic
energy resonant, squirrels
climb turn in end it, a some
facts falling into the same
bucket,, the paints and
violins the timer keeps and our
best. going we hear other and
temperature all

ten.

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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 fading in
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 it's
beautiful enough and it's
surprising enough and that itself
may be the most beautiful
and surprising thing of all
at the moment.

two.

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because the longer we
stare at the details, the less
we are sure they even
matter.

twenty nine.

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stop and thinking (not
worrying about what might be for
why we when without any,
just going of intention to
just lines one straight on to
the going straight the next
it and still things just
happen can't help but smile a
then ever about week time
like happening at the same
time sound if trying to write
things down listened. we so
much books and worrying and
start

twenty two.

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which slantingway or
combination making one thing work
and another not? the
vibrations more quiet every time we
lean our ears closer trying
to hear inside the sounds.
we are aware of our actions
but try not to notice. the
sun outside making this
fuzzy kind of sound against
the grass. we pause and just
breathe for a while. where again
the thisthat theringly,
the second hand ticking by
again and again while all
these angles crackling, we
breathe for a while longer and
the sun keeps making that
sound and we keep sniffling
from seasonal allergies. a
bird call we don't
recognize. we can't help but smile
at the sound of people
laughing and somehow the voices
make this sort of harmony
against the windchimes and we
hear all these acoustic
vibrations buzzing inside our
chests and making us feel not
warmer but more okay. more
okay.

twelve.

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we never seem to notice
the changes until they've
already happened. or at least
they are well into
happening. we wonder why that is:
the clouds evaporating and
the sun coming out, the air
getting so slightly warmer; a
single row of bricks painted a
different color. who the behinds
through before how's and where
when whenever the
againagain the words repeatingly
as we notice a little
cottonfluff drifting toward us. it
sticks to our ink, and we ask
again where meaning comes
from. a million coins being
thrown every instant, fields
of possibility so
terrifyingly wide staring us in the
eye so intensely we have to
look away and we notice this
little bug just flying around,
landing, and flying around
again. flying, landing, and
flying around again.

twenty six.

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of making themselves
other the the the the
geometries and and and
relationships pushing to fall in
pushing which always seem to
fall in the wrong the way
direction. way we expected or
intended, but maybe that could be
,, sneaking be be be the
ideas and interactions.
again goals sneaking into.
ideas into paints and
concrete interactions colors
and ideas permeating while
we watch with a smile we
watch with a a smile just
trangles into other each of each
dominoes the wrong or maybe or
intended intended goals
sneaking be we that could be the
the but the point maybe that
could way we expected not
going that point. goals
sneaking. sneaking. ideas and
and interactions and we
watch with a squares and
trangles, shapes sort of making
themselves themselves up and and
relationships pushing the way way we
but the the point into
interactions.. spray paints and
concrete concrete we concrete
watch with of a smile. it all
outlines into other things and
trangles outlines of squares and

five.

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quietingly, the
softmurmurs not trying to say
anything in particular or
convince anyone of anything,
prefering to let things just exist
the way they are and stay the
same when they need to stay
the same and change when
they need to change, or not
even need to stay the same or
need to change but maybe
instead want to stay the same or
want to change, or rather: it
just happens. it just
happens, and it keeps just
happening. the softmurmers not
even speaking about what's
going on or what's not going on
but instead just
mentioning about whatever is on
their mind at that moment,
letting it out and letting it go,
the sound waves not
disappearing but echoing off a
thousand surfaces and every
blade of grass, split and
muffled and distorted and
echoed until they sound like
dead trees, the sun pushing
the waves around a little
through the screen door, gnats
in the air just sort of
moving around.

thirteen.

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we wait for a few minutes
and wonder if it would be
okay for us to ask now: "is
this beautiful?" we wonder
if nobody noticed and we
watch the air just sort of move
around through the leaves. we
take another breath with the
sunlight and feel warmer.
throughs and arounds
behindingly the now nowing while
again the time continues and
stops and continues again.
circles of ink we close our eyes.

nine.

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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 if we should instead be
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.

twenty five.

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the conversation going
becoming heated while we do
heated outside becoming
heated while we do every
repetition faster and outside
becoming heated the
conversation going on outside
becoming we more accurate,
little little faster a little
mistakes. fewer accurate, a
accurate, a conversation heated
. fewer mistakes a little
going on conversation going
little mistakes and with fewer
mistakes. with little getting a
little more a little accurate,
a little faster and with
fewer accurate, a little
faster and with fewer mistakes
more accurate and with fewer
mistakes a little accurate, the
conversation our conversation
mistakes. the little a little
more accurate, listening.
every best to

twenty eight.

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we glance and wonder the
that, how strange hair looks
hair looks when looks when
into different shapes . we
try into different shapes.
to hand paper perfectly
legible . we were hoping or two
and a word two and word or
otherwise,. we the idea of, and we
close our eyes to wonder what
could come from just about for
it , it, and it would matter
met laughter and
conversation, pointing toward their
place . all these going back
any sort of

thirty.

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eleven.

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twenty four.

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go from one one happens
go from one other and not ,
and sometimes they are , and
it it the other even trying
. . and are sometimes it
trying. and sometimes they are
, and sometimes
sometimes they sometimes we other
even trying. are not okay go
from one the trying and
sometimes it the other to the other
without. and that we go things
are not. the and it happens
other without even okay we
other sometimes things are
sometimes they happens sometimes
sometimes trying okay, and
sometimes the other to without
without even trying . and

nineteen.

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the corner of the room
empty except for the little
grooves in the floorboard, we
smile. the moments going and
going in such a beautiful way
that we can't take our eyes
off it, noticing just how
inconsistent things are, how blurry
and arbitrary the
differences seem between things and
people and ideas, how musical a
painting can sound the ink never
seems to dry.

thirty one.

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library where every are
good grip shapes not sure if
sure are not sure shelves
feet if the feet the sure not
sure if the shelves down is a
in seen in we haven't seen
we don't remember even
remember is from an old cell left
old phone left phone left
playing music fans ventilation
fans the asking questions
they, when will thumpingly
against the growing , shapes
never growing, and growing,
shapes of some kind . we to make
don't have to can things can
that taking a step away could
even mean allowing sense
don't difference between
temperature outside difference
between our and our shoelaces
and our shoelaces tied or
untied, tangled near spoiled
food and fungi we over the
world also means, our actions
, actions and that this is
a okay if we it a its
strange same time together,
separate, going somewhere with
somewhere just falling and,
standing around hours
supposedly doing some job playing
pushed what anyone is saying it
or ourselves saying why
the wind still saying
something outside, every breath
cabinets and why they are shaped
the way, possibilities, so
many ways to write, so many
ways to roll seems everyday
that is a color piece of new of
garbage on our desks on our desks
different tones relationships
imitating meaning while our ears
and toes make up if
soullessness we prefer we are a pale
blue dot blue a pale blue dot
sand a blue dot, a of out of
place in library where every
language and language in a we
don't grip on shapes and
colors; we shuffling feet is a
name we don't remember even
sun sound is, turning the
galaxies themselves are asking
wondering where are will it will
finally whyhow minute stop for
will it a thumpingly , doors,
the momentnow and growing,
we expect to ones we of make
sense of left just as be left
just

zero.

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and all at once things
are so quiet, a tiny hiss
from the walls, distant
clanging of a ventilation fan. we
breathe with the sunlight,
passing clouds causing these
little pulses in the sunglow
and somehow we feel it in our
toes even though we can't
quite tell why the wind
chooses the pitches it sings
against the window, why one
harmony should point to
another, why every story has some
sort of climax where
elements and trajectories
culminate into some bigger thing
as if we had been heading
there all along as if there
were some kind of purpose
behind the penscratches or
where this leaf decides to
fall in this rotting pile we
notice a pain in our lower back
from bad posture and some
strange sense of pressure from
the bottom of our right foot
now the ventilation fan
slowing down into a periodic
banging; we notice a coin lying on
the ground but we can't make
out which side it landed on.
do we care? is it good to
care? would it matter if we
knew? we are staring at the
coin and the coin is staring
back.

fourteen.

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agains the wayingsong a
we or to while behind the
eyelids, and underthere, a
beforemaroon, the eyes again with
questions and ideas how to see
under a color when we are stuck
inside it these things all
moving so slowly but the clock
seems to be working as usual
with those clunks and little
fingers and woodenbits we
suggest a counterpoint. and the
conversation stays the same and
nobody really seems to care
about the wind.

sixteen.

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smile when on cue right
cue lines lines lines and so
many can't remember many
lines. so many lines and lines
and many that we remember
that the still glowing is we
breathe and we breathe . we
forget forget breathe in our
breathe and we breathe! isn't it
funny! coming of these colors
whose of these colors whose we
can't remember and lines and
and remember and lines and
so many lines so many can't
remember many lines we lines
lines. we remember that so
remember these colors whose
these names these these
colors whose and lines and so of
incense smoke in forget ask
questions. we can't! we questions
. laughing it funny when
the sun when the the funny
how. laughing it funny
funny how we can't smile when
the sun coming back right on
coming back right on cue shades
colors whose names we can't so
the we many
,