when asked where they’d like to be in ten years, the students responded with variations of “employed,” “housed,” and “alive”
Okay, I’ll bite.
I.
If I must work, I work in a headspace. Yes, the world is old and fresh, but there’s always much to learn. As such, I’ve become an educator (to no one’s surprise) at Solarpunk Utopia University. It sits on a hill that cascades like jade horsetail. There’s a pond where clumsy dandelions are learning to be ducklings. Inside, the dandelions are learning to be people—or rather, the ducklings are learning to be people—or rather, the people are learning to be people—or rather, we’ve all ingested a touch of Pinocchio’s philosophy, and we’re working on unlearning that. We think, therefore we err.
II.
Home is a peach pit like James’. We hollowed it out and nestle books in the grooves (good books, bad books, so-bad-they’re-infallible books). Rain pings off the woody endocarp, periwinkle solfège. Snails paint the windows in thick wibbly strokes. There are so many cats and they are all my favorite. I don’t mind the loose fur, because this is the future and we’ve solved that by now! I wish on whiskers. As afternoon blends amber and blue, my partner and I scrunch on opposite sides of the couch, calves piled. I’m reading a poem that tastes of coily springs and apple slices. We are luminous. This home is aglow. We live by heartwick candlelight.
III.
I wear a hundred feet. They tire the good tire, soaked in sweet-ache. Gut bugs breaststroke my microbe pool. They wear the dumbest little sunglasses. Meanwhile, the ozone layer has peeled its bandaids hair by hair. The fires have gone out and the rubble is sleeping—sediment sedentary. My nose doesn’t whistle because the air is wide air. My ribs have settled (and my pillow is always at precisely the right height). At dusk I sit below the backyard batfrenzy, attract their wingèd dinners, breathe that dark buggy madness. When the sun is gone, I listen to the blackbirds. McCartney was right about the dead of night; there is always something singing.
