[{"id":26532,"date":"2026-08-15T10:00:36","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T14:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/?p=26532"},"modified":"2026-08-11T16:29:39","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T20:29:39","slug":"inventory-of-blades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/archives\/26532","title":{"rendered":"Inventory of Blades"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Pocket<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":893,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[206],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26532"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/893"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26532"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26543,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26532\/revisions\/26543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":26471,"date":"2026-08-15T10:00:34","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T14:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/?p=26471"},"modified":"2026-08-11T16:34:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T20:34:13","slug":"after-they-ask-why-my-accent-isnt-thicker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/archives\/26471","title":{"rendered":"After They Ask Why My Accent Isn’t Thicker"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

With a modified line from Traci Brimhall\u2019s \u201cAuto-da-f\u00e9\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is nothing here for us<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

in what was once the town of Custer-Herron,<\/span><\/p>\n

now the bottom of Norfork Lake.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Because they exhumed the dead and flooded the church<\/span><\/p>\n

when Arkansas was broke and needed jobs,<\/span><\/p>\n

now there is nothing here for us.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

We imagine dark algae slithering over drowned pulpits like drunken<\/span><\/p>\n

walleye, rotten doors swimming in the currents soundless as ghosts,<\/span><\/p>\n

as photographs, down at the bottom of Norfork Lake.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

Listen: I don\u2019t know if I\u2019m Southern\u2014my mother came from the North, <\/span><\/p>\n

my father from the West, all of us thieves without anchors\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

and there is nothing here for us<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

where we swim on summer days, our tongues muddy<\/span><\/p>\n

with Coca-Cola and tales of drowned schoolhouses. We float on our stomachs,<\/span><\/p>\n

eyes open in green water, burning toward the bottom of Norfork Lake.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

I reach my hand into the depths, cool where the sun disappears, <\/span><\/p>\n

because I\u2019m asking for something to come to me\u2014a heritage<\/span><\/p>\n

stuck in the throats of catfish\u2014but there is nothing here for us<\/span><\/p>\n

at the bottom of Norfork Lake.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With a modified line from Traci Brimhall\u2019s \u201cAuto-da-f\u00e9\u201d There is nothing here for us in what was once the town of Custer-Herron, now the bottom of Norfork Lake.   Because they exhumed the dead and flooded the church when Arkansas was broke and needed jobs, now there is nothing here for us.   We imagine […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":893,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[206],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26471"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/893"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26471"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26609,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26471\/revisions\/26609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":26593,"date":"2026-08-15T10:00:33","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T14:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/?p=26593"},"modified":"2026-08-11T16:32:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T20:32:18","slug":"soapmakers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/archives\/26593","title":{"rendered":"Soapmakers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My little brother Dilly went to spend the summer in Maine with Nana Shirley. I wanted to go terribly. Nana churned delicious, fresh strawberry ice cream with a hand crank. She could shuck a lobster, pulling out every scrap, using her rolling pin to press meat out of the crustacean\u2019s thorny legs. She delighted in the \u201ctomalley,\u201d the mushy green paste I refused. We would pick blueberries from the bushes in her backyard for cobbler and shell peas into a large metal bowl at her kitchen table.\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daddy was collecting unemployment but was busy every day doing odd jobs, repairing roofs, and mowing lawns. The father who once took me for motorcycle rides, bought me Cow Tails, and carried me on his shoulders had been replaced by a gruff and scowling man. His face now shadowed with gloom and a rough smudge of beard. Quietly, I\u2019d move around, emptying ashtrays, tidying beds, and sweeping the kitchen over the melted circle of floor from when I dropped a hot frying pan. We ate our dinner, usually boxed cheese macaroni or bologna sandwiches, in separate rooms. Each morning, I\u2019d make sure the kitchen sink was emptied of dishes, and I would fill the coffee pot with Chock Full o’ Nuts before leaving the house while he was still in the bathroom having his \u201cmorning constitutional.\u201d He did not seem to notice if I was gone all day as long as before I left the house each morning, his I\u2019ma hoot!<\/em> owl mug was scrubbed out and returned to the cupboard, and his jeans were back in his closet, washed, ironed, and hung onto wire hangers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d ride my hideous bike over to Avery\u2019s. A boy\u2019s bike, the color of hot mustard, that Momma had found for me at a yard sale. She knew I wanted a bike, something fierce. I did my best to hide my disappointment as she, beaming, wheeled it up the driveway. My best friend Avery Hollis was adopted from China when she was two years old. She lives in a big house on Sutton Street with a two-car garage and a gabled roof. I was jealous of her cool, air-conditioned living room with spotless oyster shell carpet and candy dishes instead of overflowing ashtrays. Their kitchen counters are not cluttered with light bills and cans of wax beans. Her family eats dinner together every night at the dining room table set with an ivory tablecloth, matching plates decorated with tiny ferns, and goblets filled with ice water. Her mother serves fruit cups with real slices of kiwi, not the gooey canned cocktail mix with pale cherry buttons. I coveted Avery\u2019s flouncy canopy bed and her bedroom television set programmed with premium cable. I envied her bike the most. Avery\u2019s bike was a dream: pink handlebars with a flower-printed seat, white streaming tassels, a bell, and a basket covered in daisies.\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we were taking turns twisting each other\u2019s hair up in rollers, Avery asked me, \u201cDo you miss your mom?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I nodded and asked, \u201cDo you miss yours?\u201d\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She furrowed her brow and changed the subject, \u201cLet\u2019s go use the Slip \u2019N Slide.\u201d\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With that we tied shopping bags over our curlers and went to her backyard to launch ourselves across the expanse of freshly trimmed lawn on a synthetic runway of sprinkling hose water, giggling through friction burns and grass stains. I would have stayed in Avery\u2019s house all summer, appreciating the heavenly central air and eating the prim lunches Mrs. Hollis prepared: triangled sandwiches, pickle spears, and Frescas. To my dismay, on the first of July, Avery was off to an overnight camp for girls in Vermont.\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On our last afternoon together, Avery dazzled me with an exhibition of her pink makeup case bursting with drugstore cosmetics that she planned to sneak into camp. There were eyeshadow palettes, tubes of lipstick, pots of shimmery gloss, and assorted pencils. She gave me a full makeover with blocks of emerald and fuchsia eye shadow, jade eyeliner, volumizing mascara, a stripe of blush, and she finished off with peach frost lip gloss. My freckles vanished under the pressed powder; she wound my cherry cola-colored mop in a snug chignon. Returning home, I strutted in with a dramatic thwack!<\/em> of the screen door. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My father looked up from a small motor he was repairing at the kitchen table and groused, “Go wash that shit off your face; you look like a clown.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Avery left for Camp Abenaki, I hung out with Sadie Boon. Sadie lived in the Gullet, what people in town called the labyrinth of public housing in the west end. There were twelve kids in the Boon family, ranging in ages from 6 to 20. The other Boon children included Benjamin (Benji), Linda (Lindy), Angela (Big Ang), twins Maureen (Mo) and Mary, Teresa (Tess), Judith (Joda), another set of twins, Sharon (Sha) and Michelle (Belly), Jeremy (Jere), and the eldest, John, who was inexplicably nicknamed Sauce. Everyone but Sauce lived stacked upon each other in their booming, tangled house. He had a rented room in the center of town over a plumbing supply store. The Boons also had an assortment of varicolored cats: Soot, Jellybean, Patch, Dice, Mittens, and Batman that weren\u2019t exactly theirs but moved in and out of the house freely, napping on piles of laundry or yowling for scraps.\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sadie\u2019s mom could usually be found smoking cigarettes and clucking her tongue with the other ladies on various stoops around the Gullet. I never once heard her dad speak, but we would often see him hunched over, repairing some neighbor\u2019s car. Other men gathering around like turkeys, nodding their approval or cutting in with their counsel. Sadie and I would make up dance routines and sun ourselves on bendy lounge chairs in her driveway, slathering our legs with baby oil. She would mix us biting drinks from vodka lifted from her mother\u2019s giant plastic bottle mixed with Hi-C, careful to refill the vodka bottle with an inch or two of tap water.\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lindy, the reluctant substitute grown-up of the Boon clan, would hand Sadie a shopping list, hurrying us out to the farmers\u2019 market, where some of the vendors took food stamps. Lindy was well known for her nourishing one-pot meals, and if Sadie invited me to stay for dinner, she\u2019d nod and toss one more potato into the pot. On the menu that night was Lindy\u2019s Hamburger Stew, and we were sent with instructions to obtain onions, celery, carrots, green beans, and tomatoes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The farmers\u2019 market was a grid of stalls on the town hall lawn. Some were selling an assortment of vegetables; others, embellished loaves of sourdough. There were jars of honey and church lady jams, farm-fresh eggs, fresh-cut flowers, and herb starters. One stall, Magpie Soaps<\/em>, featured soap bars in varying shades, each wrapped neatly in a wide strip of paper and stamped with the image of a black and white bird. Behind the table, a pretty woman with a heart-shaped face and a waterfall of midnight hair cascading past her bottom was arranging the soaps. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCan I interest you in anything?\u201d She chirped. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Surveying the soap labels, I wondered, \u201cI\u2019ve never heard of these kinds of soap.\u201d\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She bubbled, \u201cThese are very special soaps, named for the ones I love! \u201cThis soap,\u201d she says, pointing at a pinky-petaled soap, \u201cis graceful and feminine, made with chamomile, rose petals, and jasmine, and is named for my mother, Rosa. This one,\u201d holding up a soap labeled Silvano<\/em>, \u201cwith notes of vanilla, leather, and tobacco, is earthy and complex, just like my father. This one, made with oats and honey, is used to soothe and gently rub away your troubles, like my grandmother Valentina does. This one,\u201d she said, lifting it to her nose and inhaling deeply, \u201cis a cozy hug and a cup of caf\u00e9 de olla, with cinnamon and cloves for my godmother, In\u00e9s. There is also one for my dear friend Jo\u00e3o, hardworking, salt of the earth with charcoal, coffee, and flor de sal. Oh, and this beauty over here is Zofia; withorange, lulo, pepper, and vetiver, it is a perfect blend of zesty and grounding. For that,\u201d she decided, nodding at the heat rash blooming on the creases on my arms, \u201cYou’ll need Clara; it\u2019s pure goat\u2019s milk, excellent for healing rashes.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh, sorry, no,\u201d I protested. “I don\u2019t have any money with me.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s ok,\u201d she assured, \u201cit\u2019s on the house,\u201d as she wraps the pearly bar in a paper bag with the black and white bird stamped on it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019re Tawnee\u2019s girl, right? Blue?\u201d she asked. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes, ma\u2019am,\u201d I murmured, staring down at my filthy, flip-flopped feet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Immediately, her face knit into an expression of sorrow as she handed me the bag. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThank you, ma\u2019am.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She smiled broadly and places her hand over her heart. \u201cNot ma\u2019am, Magdalena.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sadie\u2019s parents didn\u2019t squawk when she pierced her ears, icing them over the bathroom sink before popping a safety pin through each lobe. They didn\u2019t object when she came out of the house wearing a belly shirt, a pair of gold hoops she stole from Joda, with her jeans slashed into shorts, the undersides of her cheeks hinting out like two scoops of vanilla ice cream above her tanned thighs. They didn\u2019t flinch when Davey Holmes picked her up in his long yellow car, the sizable rust spots on the doors making it look like a giant bruised banana.\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Davey was 22 and worked at the supermarket deli counter. He drove us to the quarry where older kids jumped and swam, lobbed stones, and spray-painted rocks with electrified graffiti, tags shouting \u201cBolt,\u201d \u201cRazor,\u201d and \u201cJinx.\u201dWe hung out sharing his six-pack, listening to the echoes of teenagers hooting until sunset. Then Davey drove us to the carnival; he bought us tickets to ride the Scrambler. Sadie and I belly laughed, gripping the metal bar, hopelessly mashing against each other with every revolution. When Sadie and Davey decided to head back to the car to smoke a joint, I stayed behind and tried to use my last tickets to win a stuffed frog at a game by pitching baseballs at stacked milk bottles. After I floundered, the carny handed me a small rubber duck for my trouble and spat chew into a popcorn cup.\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The moment I turned around, I was flanked by three horrible boys from school.\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sully, ruddy with a thick neck, taunted, \u201cHey, Blue, heard your mom’s at the nuthouse doing the Thorazine shuffle.\u201d He imitated a moaning zombie with his tongue drooping from his mouth.\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chad, scrawny with a wiffle scalp, and Brandon, stout and greasy, joined in the heckling: \u201cFunny farm!\u201d \u201cLoony bin!\u201d \u201cBooby hatch!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I snarled at Sully, \u201cDon\u2019t worry about me. Worry about that disgusting zit on your chin!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I jogged back to the field where the banana was parked. Through the rolled-down passenger window, I could see Sadie\u2019s head bobbing up and down on Davey\u2019s lap. He rested one hand on the steering wheel and the other lightly on her ponytail. I stood there frozen as though my legs were bound in irons, my cheeks scalding. He held her head like he was inspecting the ripeness of a supermarket cantaloupe before shoving it down hard into his groin as he began rapidly thrusting. The sounds of him crying out, insisting, \u201cSwallow! Swallow!\u201d unshackled me. I threw the rubber duck onto the dirt and ran, without stopping, all the way through the field to the pavement with street lights, through the town square, and down our road. When I ran through the front door trembling, my T-shirt was drenched in cold sweat, my throat stung, and my lungs felt blistered. After that night I didn\u2019t go back to the Gullet, and I didn\u2019t answer the kitchen phone in case Sadie was calling. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For many days I wilted at home alone, reading bowed paperbacks, sucking ice pops, and shouting into the box window fan just to hear another voice. I considered going to the town pool or the playground but couldn\u2019t bear having to face Sully or Sadie. After days of talking only to the trembling robotic voice of the window fan, I rode my bike back to the farmers\u2019 market. I wanted to thank the soap lady, as her buttery soap had cleared my rash and left my skin feeling as smooth as a baby\u2019s butt cheek. \u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGood morning, ma\u2019am,\u201d I began.\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She responded, \u201cWhat did I say? Not, ma’am. You can call me Magda, Maggie, Mags, Magpie, or even my full name, Magdalena Rosa Guadalupe Garcia!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMagpie, like your soap?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes, indeed,\u201d she grinned. \u201cThat was my father\u2019s endearment for me.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThank you for the soap you gave me. It fixed my rash.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She winked. \u201cDo you know what the secret ingredient is?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I shrugged. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe secret ingredient is love.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh,\u201d I said, faintly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou know, I could use a helper for soap making and someone to play with our daughter Clara so Zofia has a bit more time to paint. Are you interested?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I nodded. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe live in the only yellow house on Fiddle Road; you can\u2019t miss it,\u201d she beamed. \u201cCome by tomorrow afternoon?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The house was the color of marigolds with flowering magnolia trees in the front yard; their creamy blooms smelled of lemons. The living room was a kaleidoscope with turquoise walls, potted plants, woven tapestries, wooden masks, a carved coyote, and a large ceramic statue of the Virgin Mary. The centerpiece of the room was an enormous painting of striking Black women posing gracefully in flowing striped dresses with brimming bowls of fruit perched upon their heads.\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cZofia painted that,\u201d Magdalena twinkled, waving toward the beautiful fruit women. \u201cShe\u2019s in the garden right now.\u201d\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through the back door, I could see a woman in blue jeans with a bandana tied over her head harvesting zucchini and summer squash, piling them high into a wicker basket.\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBlue, this is Clara,\u201d Magdalena said as a little girl emerges from behind her skirt wearing an eyelet sundress, her hair expertly braided into a pattern of spirals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s Chooch,\u201d Clara informed me as she gestures to an orange, pot-bellied cat licking his paw on the back of the sofa.\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChooch is short for chuchuzinho,\u201d Magdalena chimed. \u201cIt means little pumpkin in Portuguese. Jo\u00e3o named him. He found Chooch when he was a teeny kitten, no bigger than a can of corn, hiding out with the herd, filling his belly with goat milk. Now he\u2019s the king of the castle.\u201d She chuckled, affectionately patting Chooch\u2019s head.\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chooch mewed in agreement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cClara, can you go help Mommy in the garden? I am going to go show Blue how we make the soap.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Magdalena led me down the hall to a room with a sprawling table in the center, bins piled high on the counters, racks packed with neat stacks of soaps, and a gigantic bookcase lined with glass jars containing herbs, flower petals, and different kinds of salts.\u202fShe handed me a long-sleeved smock, a pair of rubber gloves, and goggles.\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe need to be very careful with lye,\u201d she advised. \u201cWe make cold process soaps; we get the raw goat milk from Jo\u00e3o. He has a little farm up the road with chickens and goats. We freeze the milk in these ice cube trays to prevent it from scorching.\u201d\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She demonstrated slowly adding the lye powder to the slushy milk in a large stainless-steel pot while warming another smaller pot of coconut and olive oil, adding heaping spoonfuls of shea butter. Then she stirred everything together with a stick blender, whipping it into a puddingy mixture. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cToday we\u2019re making Carmelita, inspired by my cousin who composes medicines and remedies from her herb garden.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I watched as she added drops of scented oils and dried thyme, rosemary, and peppermint leaves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOnce we have our blend sorted, we pour it into these long molds and allow them to set for two days. After that, we pop the soap loaves out and use the soap cutter to divide them into ten bars. Then they cure on the rack for a few weeks before they are ready for the market.\u201d She poured the mix into the soap mold, instructing, \u201cIt\u2019s important to tap them to get rid of any bubbles!\u201d Tap, tap, tap.<\/em> \u201cThe next step is the most crucial part of the process. We must bless the soap so that it holds the properties we intend.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat does that mean?\u201d I asked, puzzled. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe must decide if this soap is meant to bring comfort or strength or inspiration. Carmelita is for healing and protection.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Magdalena closed her eyes and placed her hands over her heart. “Mother of mercy and love, bless this soap with your divine protection and healing; may it cure every sickness, remove every pain, and restore the strength of all that it flows over. Let it be so.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the next few weeks, I helped make and package and pray over the soaps. Clara and I brewed iced tea and fixed lemonade that we passed out in Dixie cups at the farmers\u2019 market. We painted found rocks that we advertised as paperweights and sold for a quarter each at a card table next to Magpie Soaps. Zofia brought us to Jo\u00e3o\u2019s farm to collect goat milk. He was a slight man, quiet, with a stooped back and crinkles around his eyes. He always wore a flat cap. When we visited, he\u2019d let Clara and me play with the baby chickens, rubbing our faces on their downy black and yellow fuzz. Jo\u00e3o collected all the painted rocks we had made just for him and displayed them in the flowerbeds alongside his peonies.\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zofia showed me how to make sancocho with pork, plantains, and yuca. We taught each other card games and danced to upbeat music accented with drums, trumpets, and accordions. When the town showed Bringing Up Baby <\/em>on a makeshift screen in the baseball field, the four of us sprawled on a quilted square and snacked on almond cookies and slices of watermelon sprinkled with chili. After the movie, Magdalena carried a sleeping Clara into the house, and Zofia drove me home with my bike crammed into their trunk. I sputtered, admitting to her that I yearned for Avery\u2019s pretty pink bike.\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a nice bike, but you want a pink bike?\u201d Zofia asked. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo, I really wanted a purple one; that\u2019s my favorite color. I know my mom wished it was purple; it is a good bike, but it\u2019s an ugly bike,\u201d I tittered, \u201cthough it flies fast all the way down Hillside Street!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One morning after Zofia brushed through Magdalena\u2019s thick tresses and braided Clara\u2019s, applying a thin finger swipe of coconut oil between each of the rows, she set me down in front of her, brushing out my snarled cherry brown mane, parting it with a comb, and weaving the strands into tight Dutch braids. I softened into her skilled hands, but something pained me. I flashed back to Momma brushing my hair, serenading me with her hairbrush microphone, \u201c<\/em>Me and you are subject to the blues now and then, but when you take the blues and make a song, you sing them out again.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had willed myself not to think about Momma, not to miss the smells of her cooking or the pleasant fragrance of her shampoo. I longed to slip into her bed, tucking myself into the warm curve of her body, feeling the silkiness of her nightgown against my skin and the prickles of her legs that needed shaving. I had stopped looking at the photo on the dresser of her arms around Daddy, both grinning wide, him looking at her, her looking straight at whoever was taking their photo, sunlight flooding her curls, turning them the exact color of a shiny, brand-new penny.\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBlue, we\u2019d like to pay you to do some deliveries for us,\u201d Magdalena proclaimed one morning as Clara and I were playing Hi Ho! Cherry-O. \u201cModine\u2019s, The Enchanted Bloom, and the Sugar Shack have all agreed to stock Magpie Soaps. We can pay you two bucks a delivery; what do you say?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes!\u201d I whooped; I would have done it for free but hoped Daddy would be impressed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFantastic! Jo\u00e3o says you\u2019ll need to bring your bicycle over to him for a tune-up. We want to make sure it\u2019s in tip-top shape for official company business.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I couldn\u2019t see why a tune-up would be necessary given that the drugstore, florist, and coffee shop were all within a two-mile loop. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOkay!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I returned to collect my bike from Jo\u00e3o\u2019s on Monday morning, he opened the barn door, revealing my bike repainted in gleaming metallic purple, the seat reupholstered with glittering silver vinyl, and a polished bell and large metal basket attached to the front.\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I squealed, \u201cOh! Thank you, sir!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He smiled politely, touching the front of his cap. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thrilled, I rode through town, the wind jitterbugging through my hair past the public pool, through the town center, by the strip mall, and out to our road where Mrs. Gershon sat shucking corn, waving to me from her porch swing. I wondered what she was thinking just then, recollecting the day she stood in her yard in her housecoat, refilling her bird feeders, as I ran up to her, clutching my naked, howling baby brother. Stumbling, I wailed, \u201cHELP ME!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After Dilly was born, Momma would sit for hours on the side of her bed, speaking with the shadows on the wall. Sometimes she\u2019d giggle at the shadows’ secret jokes; other times she had frantic arguments with them. Daddy had taken her to see a pack of doctors. I\u2019d eavesdrop on him talking to Nana with hushed tones from the kitchen phone, reciting the collected conclusions. Round orange tablets and shock treatments followed, but Momma seemed to sail further away from our shore. One morning I was wiping up some juice I had spilled when I could hear her softly singing and cooing to Dilly as she gave him a bath. A sick feeling crowded in on me. I ran into the bathroom where she held Dilly under the water, his eyes wide, his little feet banging against the basin. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMomma, no!\u201d I shrieked, grabbing her shoulders, though she would not budge.\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I could never explain how I sourced the strength that day, but I summoned a tiger. I clawed at her, snatching handfuls of her matted, coppery hair. I tore her away from the bathtub, accidentally slamming her head against the sink cabinet. I grabbed Dilly, coughing and sputtering, out of the tub and ran from the house, down the road to the Gershon\u2019s, clinging to his heavy, slippery body. Mrs. Gershon dropped the bag of sunflower seeds as my screams pierced through the whirring of Mr. Gershon\u2019s riding mower. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After that, Momma was sent to Oakhurst, a stone and concrete rectangle with crosshatched metal windows situated at the end of a long road of tall, ancient trees. It was decided that I would stay home this summer to help around the house and be here for when Momma got better. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At my Sugar Shack delivery, the counter girl gifted me a free peach kuchen muffin, and Mr. Modine gave me a Modine\u2019s Drugs\u2014Relief is within reach\u2014<\/em>promotional pen. As I rounded the corner outside Modine\u2019s, I saw Sully, Chad, and Brandon leaning menacingly against the brick wall next to my bike.\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNice bike, Blue. You do know it\u2019s a boys’ bike? I\u2019ve seen you hanging out with those lesbos. Are you a dyke too?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA fugly dyke with a nut-job mother,\u201d they sniggered. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I swung my leg over and looked straight in Sully\u2019s fleshy, rare-roast-beef face.\u202f\u201cYour life must be so sad if this is what makes you happy,\u201d I flung back, and pedaled away with my middle finger raised high. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sully raged after me. \u201cFuck you, dyke!\u201d\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nana was the one to tell me. She spoke tenderly, explaining that Momma was not responding to the medicines and treatments like they hoped. Now that Daddy\u2019s unemployment had run out and no one around was hiring, he had found a job on a container ship with a five-month contract. She told me that I was going to ride the bus up to stay with her and said that she was so looking forward to taking me shopping for \u201csmart clothes\u201d and a \u201cnice new book bag\u201d for me to start the eighth grade there in Maine. She promised we could drive back to visit Momma for Christmas and said we\u2019d light candles and pray every single day that she would be back to herself by then. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My friends threw a going-away party for me. Magdalena made tres leches, though my stomach hurt, not allowing me to savor the custardy cake. Clara gave me a drawing of her and me holding hands in a crayon world with two suns and endless loopy flowers.\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zofia cradled my face in both of her golden hands. \u201cNever forget we love you, Indigo, baby.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daddy drove me to the station.\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the driver placed my cases underneath,\u202fDaddy counted out some limp bills and said, \u201cMind your Nana, and be helpful with Dylan.\u201d\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes, sir,” I answered, accepting the sweaty wad of cash.\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I stepped up onto the bus stairs and then turned back and hurled myself at Daddy, cleaving to his chest, my tears darkening his shirt. He held me there, wrapped me in his solid arms, and kissed the top of my head. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nana transformed her attic room into a cheerful bedroom for me with a mint-colored chenille blanket, a maple bookshelf, and a writing desk. We spent days at the beach making sandcastles with Dilly. I covered his face with kisses and his belly with raspberries. We had clam boils and baked fruit pies. We picked apples and one-two-threedDilly into piles of leaves. One afternoon while I was helping make the cranberry relish, the mail truck rambled by.\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nana came back inside with a box. \u201cPudding, you have a package.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I opened it, it was loaded with creamy bars of soap swirled with blue. In elegant script, the note read, \u201cWe made Blue soap! With bright, sunny lemon balm and sweet dried blueberries from where you are now in Maine. The blue ripples are indigo powder for you, Indigo baby! May this soap shower you with grace. May you continue to be a light in this world, finding happiness in the tiniest things, and may you know that the fierce love of mothers everywhere is always with you.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Love, Clara, Zofia, and Magpie\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My little brother Dilly went to spend the summer in Maine with Nana Shirley. I wanted to go terribly. Nana churned delicious, fresh strawberry ice cream with a hand crank. She could shuck a lobster, pulling out every scrap, using her rolling pin to press meat out of the crustacean\u2019s thorny legs. She delighted in the \u201ctomalley,\u201d the mushy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":893,"featured_media":26594,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16],"tags":[206],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26593"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/893"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26593"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26710,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26593\/revisions\/26710"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":26575,"date":"2026-08-15T10:00:32","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T14:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/?p=26575"},"modified":"2026-08-11T16:30:45","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T20:30:45","slug":"narcissus-and-the-octopus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/archives\/26575","title":{"rendered":"Narcissus and the Octopus"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

1. Suppose I told you I had become obsessed with desire. It wasn\u2019t the tangible thing, really, but the concept that had taken root in the soil of my mind and grown there, unbidden.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. You see, when I first thought of writing down this idea\u2014an idea of an idea\u2014I saw all these internet posts of young men asking about their beauty. Which jaw or related<\/em> surgeries would transform them from \u201csubhuman,\u201d a \u201csub 5\/10,\u201d as some in that community think of themselves, to a \u201cChad\u201d or even a \u201cGiga Chad,\u201d the man of all men<\/em>? When I say it that way, it sounds almost dirty, like I\u2019m <\/em>the one confessing. Here it goes: Desiring beauty for the simple fact of creating desire in others, rather than for any particular outcome, is a radical act. It\u2019s even more radical when a man does it. <\/em>Put that way, in italics, it feels like I am giving away a confession. Wagner\u2019s \u201cRide of the Valkyries\u201d booms in the background like a war cry as I balance myself on an uneven couch cushion, a visible asymmetry. I can\u2019t see it, but my screen glows blue. I can\u2019t see them at the moment, but people everywhere walk around in masks. Whether through soda product, makeup choice, or surgery type, people choose the things that reflect human evolution on a per-person level. Peoplewant to take evolution into their own hands. No one has time to wait for dozens, hundreds, thousands, or even millions of years of genetic blending, only for someone else to reap the reward. Instead of the wretched \u201csurvival of the fittest,\u201d it\u2019s a survival of the best performance. Once, TV allowed us to see what we could become. I wonder if the internet is just the next step in an inevitable story, one where people turn themselves<\/em> into types. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. In Ovid\u2019s retelling of the myth of Narcissus, a proud, stoical young man could not see past exteriors, the mirrors that reflected snippets of himself. Nymphs, and no one else, for that matter, attracted the handsome young man\u2019s eye. One particular nymph, Echo, sighted the mythical man and tried to embrace him anyway. Echo could only return the sounds and last words spoken by others, so she ended up echoing Narcissus. In my mind\u2019s eye, I watch Echo as she stood in her echo chamber, the original algorithm, an ancient story of a timeless condition. Unimpressed, as usual, Narcissus spurned Echo, whose bones would turn to rocks, her words enshrined in cave walls. The Greeks believed that grief gave caves their sounds. Since Narcissus withheld his love from all, the gods fated the young man to witness but never possess the object of his affection, as if creating a prophecy for those who would wander in his footsteps. I will interrupt this interlude now to say that desire can be dangerous.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. One day, while hunting, Narcissus stooped over a pool of water for a drink. As he beheld himself there, in the water, he fell in love with the reflection, a story many of us know. Plagued by his own self-infatuation, Narcissus remained by the pool\u2019s side, gazing at it without eating or sleeping. By the end, unable to hold the object of his affection, Narcissus resolved that they would expire as one. Supposedly, in the myth, Narcissus died because he became infatuated with his own image, but what if it wasn\u2019t his blinding self-love that had killed him, as Ovid thought, or even the consequences of his own beauty, but the pursuit of beauty itself<\/em>? For centuries, women had done the very same thing, seeking beauty for the sake of desire, or desire for the sake of desire<\/em>, like the feeling of an admiring stare and the goosebumps it evokes. Sometimes, beauty means a way to get something, but when it doesn\u2019t, it confounds. Who could hope to control or understand what wants everything from us\u2014our attention, our admiration, our desire, each its own confession\u2014but gives us nothing in return? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. Another pool tempts people. Stimulus-response, probabilistic prediction, reasoning chains, token sequences that transform words into numbers that machines can read; clock-driven, deterministic math that simulates life: AI. Reactive servant? Something else? We gaze and gaze, sometimes forgetting that the math is so intricate that the insightmimics<\/em> human beings with so much fidelity. Yet, it is a mirror that reflects us<\/em>. What we see in the water is a mirage of the data fed to it, and the selves we give it. Even when we abandon 1s and 0s in favor of neuromorphic computing, spiking networks, continuous time, and dynamic feedback loops that create something like real-time artificial existence with a desire to survive, learn, and act to minimize chaos, almost like humans, it will always feel somehow self-referential. The internet post reflects the poster. The hacking mirrors the hacker. The AI echoes its creator, even when it becomes fully capable of choice. HAL 9000, or a youth on the internet who changes himself for the emptying desire of \u201cmogging\u201d other men: It is about changing what we see so that we can fall in love with ourselves all over again. Go ahead. Take a dip, if you\u2019d like. I won\u2019t judge. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6. I am listening to the Addinsell\u2019s Warsaw Concerto<\/em> and watching a video of a giant Pacific octopus hauling itself across the deck of a sportfishing boat, its liquid body writhing. All of its neurons concentrated in its arms; frame made plastic, like gel. It continuously moves so unlike people, it occurs to me. How non-human it is to expand one\u2019s physical self beyond the physical confines, like an octopus. Instead, humans, stuck within the molding, corroding decay of flesh, seek to remodel<\/em> their flesh, putting in fresh finishes to flip themselves so that the gaze, once male, now androgynous, a market gaze<\/em>, can look at all young people as opportunities in disguise. This sort of desire feels liquid if we try to touch it; it squirms and slithers out of our hands. Drink a Diet Coke, it says, amid girly pictures of lipstick stains on soda cans, a \u201cfemale\u201d gaze for female audiences. Drink a Coke Zero and stay a man in an emasculating world, offers the \u201cmale\u201d version for male audiences. It strikes me as fascinating that we take our physical confines and rebuild them, almost as a rejection of the solidity of our forms. By snipping, cutting, and smashing, we can live our human evolution, the illusion of continuous development that would otherwise happen too slowly for the naked eye. No, we don\u2019t have to wait, the way Narcissus did, with his nose tipped toward the surface of a reflective pool. Don\u2019t wait for me, I\u2019d say. I don\u2019t want you to fall in. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

7. In \u201cThe Diet Coke Essay,\u201d Cricket Guest says, \u201cSuperficial femininity\u2026, like Diet Coke, is also defined by an unabashed embrace of the synthetic. Whilst new age masculine performance is Coke Zero, the synthetic masquerading as real.\u201d I think of this quote for a long time, even though I don\u2019t drink soda. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

8. Elsewhere in the time-space continuum, a puffy-faced adolescent boy had a vision of himself as a new type of being. The dream orgasmed a spray of colors in front of his eyes, as I imagine it; blue spilling into magenta, yellow blurring into orange, green morphing into red; blue and violet spilling out of leaks in the walls and landing on a table with a hammer and a computer on it, playing internet videos on repeat. The boy heard a voice coming from the tiniest holes in the walls.\u202fBoys across the internet hear it, too, and they answer, as Echo did. They want to be desired, like things, like sensual<\/em> things capable of thought and feeling.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

9. Albinoni\u2019s Adagio in G Minor<\/em>, with all of its plaintive strings, sounds like longing. How refreshing it feels to think of desire not as a sign of something missing, but as a thing that aches because we can\u2019t rid ourselves of it. Like a parasite, this desire nests within our flesh and eats us from the inside, driving us to senseless feats. I admit that I, too, once felt this desire. I once looked in mirrors and wanted nothing more than to be desired for the sake of knowing I could become an object. As objects of affection, we relinquish the burden of our own desires, sliding away from the promiscuous vulnerability of the first-person to the comfortable distance of looking at ourselves from the outside (the second or even third person) to the safety-in-numbers of the first-person plural. We take a break from the ceaseless demands of having desire, replacing it with someone else\u2019s. What\u2019s radical about young men on the internet is that they are new to the scene. By remodeling themselves, they might tell themselves that they do it to sing to the nymphs, to tempt them closer, but they have less interest in indulging them. In adopting the beauty standards long relegated to the world of women, where beauty meant status as much as it provided a tool to climb and escape, men return to the time of painting their faces and wearing high-heeled shoes, careful not to trample the daffodils. Beauty for its own sake. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

10. \u201cIt\u2019s happening to you, too?\u201d The voice in the walls asked the boy, and he nodded. For the longest time, he had been reading online about the destiny of special people, the kind born beautiful. Their eyes didn\u2019t droop; the cheekbones naturally jutted from their faces; their brows and noses created from the same, even, proportionate clay; lips puffed from their faces like perfect little pillows; their jawlines capable of cutting much more than glass. The voice in the wall flowed past this noise, this old self, and told the boy that he, too, could become beautiful testosterone, like the others. He just had to listen to the whisper that said to grab the hammer. Gently, affectionately, tenderly, almost erotically, the boy stroked the edge of his mandible with the tool, as I imagine it. By the time he struck his own jaw, it was almost a kiss. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

11. The question of wanting this surgery\u2014did<\/em> I want this surgery? Why? Because my jaws never grew the right way, forcing only my back teeth to meet and take all the force, now ground to nubs? Yet, you could say I\u2019m one of the lucky ones. Despite the deformities, no one could tell. My body hid its shame so well that it compensated for its asymmetries\u2014not enough to help me chew things right, but enough to make me look mostly proportionate to the proportion-hungry eye. The violence of surgery\u2014to take a drill, a saw, or a blade to a part of the body and cut it away from the rest, slicing it and repositioning it\u2014has always enthralled me. It\u2019s not a new thought, and perhaps it\u2019s taboo to interrupt with more personal musings. Considering my personal relationship to the subject matter, I\u2019m going to take the risk.\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

12. At a reading event I attended, I found myself clobbered by how personal the disclosures felt. In their everyday lives, so many people carry their confessions bubble-wrapped to avoid sharing too much. Too much<\/em> slimes a residue on the skin. Toomuchness risks indecent exposure, turning oneself inside out and revealing the mismatched seams, the stitches a little misplaced, if you\u2019ll allow the surgical metaphor. Come on too strong, too human, too vulnerable, too raw, and you risk scaring someone away. It remains vital to learn how to perform in context<\/em>, always appropriate to other people\u2019s needs\u2014except at a reading, in algorithmic chats, or on a surgical table, where people can be themselves.\u202f <\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

13. The cushion remains precarious as I sit on it. If I shift my weight too much, I know I will ache the next day. \u201cSolveig\u2019s Song,\u201d the final movement of Grieg\u2019s Peer Gynt Suite No. 2, Op. 55<\/em>, sounds tender to my ears. The waves carry Solveig\u2019s unwavering devotion that Peer, her self-centered, fanatical, anti-hero lover, will return to her. If we hear it at all, we might think of it as pure love, of good winning over evil. I hear only Echo\u2019s longing, the original woman who contained only what others saw. The Eve before Eve. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

14. And here I am, musing about others and myself and aching to slip into the old habit of the protective first-person plural or second-person that allows me to look at things as happening to others. To write about others and explore their consciousness without ever revealing too much of myself. I used to call it \u201chiding in plain sight.\u201d You see, if I simply said that I, too, am navigating the enormity of a surgical choice, it would feel naked. I prefer to drape my self\u2014two separate words\u2014in my choices. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

15. The young man with the hammer also faced the looming nature of choice. He had become infatuated with the idea that men could \u201cascend\u201d and leave their old selves behind. Let\u2019s just say that he is now everywhere, the self gazing at the self, and we must decide what kind of \u201cwe\u201d we will be. As Maggie Nelson says in Bluets<\/em>, an unknowable future seems like proof, to some, that our \u201centire existence here is best understood as a sort of joke or mistake.\u201d As an April Fool\u2019s child, born on a day of jokes, I sympathize. See, I still haven\u2019t told you what this whole thing is about. I\u2019m still hiding, to the bitter, or not-so-bitter, end. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

16. I don\u2019t want to have to undergo surgery, so I once felt hesitant, maybe even resistant. And yet, I have accepted it as an inevitability, not for beauty, but to correct inescapable flaws in my bones, jaws, and how my teeth meet. I suppose now is as good as any to say it. I read about the surgery online, watching the looksmaxxers try to optimize their physical selves. I wearied of this incessant self-improvement pace in my late twenties, proof, I suppose, of my aging. Zygmunt Bauman claims that to be modern is not \u201cso much just \u2018to be,\u2019\u201d but to be \u201cforever \u2018becoming,\u2019 avoiding completion, staying underdefined.\u201d Modernity, then, is fast-paced fluidity that outpaces us all, whether we bow our faces toward the ripples or not. Having evolved ourselves to see beyond the surface, we lean, lean, lean toward the surface at our own peril.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

17. Nelson thinks of the blues as she closes her meditation on the color blue. I think of Narcissus and the octopus. Which one is more beautiful? Nelson says, \u201cYou have to stand there, spade in hand, cold whiskey sweat beaded on your brow, eyes misshapen and wild, some sorry-ass grave digger grown bone-tired of the trade. You have to stand in the dirty rut you dug, alone in the darkness, in all its pulsing quiet, surrounded by the scandal of corpses.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

18. One day, the boy with the hammer who\u2019d remodeled himself into his image of God will age. Alone in the darkness of a fading self, the ultimate counterstroke to the hubris of youth, he will have to face the feelings of irrelevance or waste away, as Narcissus did. No matter how hard we try to avoid it, these feelings, or the pulsing quiet they bring, no one is immune.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

19. I think of bones, the scandal of all our dead selves littered along the way. Now, the cloud, with all of its dubious data, can sepulcher all these dead selves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

20. So, you want to know. Okay. I dip my face toward the pool and gaze, wary now. When I was younger, I changed parts of myself to fit beauty. Now, as I stare at myself, feeling my bones throbbing through my legs, I don\u2019t want the furor of desire anymore, like a being stubbornly devolving, shedding its limbs and heading back into the ocean. Facing a risky surgery before I lose my teeth, a surgery that others seek out for beauty, I curse desire. I yell through Echo\u2019s cave, stomp in Narcissus\u2019s pool, and laugh at Bach\u2019s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565<\/em>\u2014the baroque shifts feeling more comedic by the second. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

21. Every day that I creep closer to the finish line, I shed flakes of skin. Whole trails of this dermis lead me forward, through expanses with no desire. I desire nothing, and so it doesn\u2019t desire me. In celebration of everything, desire springs up all around me: roots greeting the loam; stems greeting the air; grass greeting the sun; flowers greeting pollinators. Fear, I realize, is a desire for control. I step into the cool, clinical hiss of the sliding glass doors, as I will hundreds of times in intrusive thoughts. They intrude, asymmetrical, all of them, and still, I let them in. I let them in so that I can let them go. I stop digging, bone-tired. I leave my old self right there on the operating table, forever becoming, avoiding completion, staying only partially defined.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1. Suppose I told you I had become obsessed with desire. It wasn\u2019t the tangible thing, really, but the concept that had taken root in the soil of my mind and grown there, unbidden.   * * * 2. You see, when I first thought of writing down this idea\u2014an idea of an idea\u2014I saw all these internet posts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":893,"featured_media":26577,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[206],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26575"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/893"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26575"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26676,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26575\/revisions\/26676"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":26477,"date":"2026-08-15T10:00:32","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T14:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/?p=26477"},"modified":"2026-08-11T16:21:02","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T20:21:02","slug":"justin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/archives\/26477","title":{"rendered":"Justin"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n \n \n<\/p>\n

I.<\/span><\/p>\n

The first time you meet your wife\u2019s<\/span><\/p>\n

parents, they will invite you<\/span><\/p>\n

to Thanksgiving dinner. High school<\/span><\/p>\n

sweethearts, fucking in backseats,<\/span><\/p>\n

sneaking in through her window. Her<\/span><\/p>\n

family will be loud and large<\/span><\/p>\n

like an oven. Uncles, aunts, grandmothers,<\/span><\/p>\n

grandfathers. The women will be finishing<\/span><\/p>\n

up in the kitchen. Her father: balding<\/span><\/p>\n

with a beer belly and a voice<\/span><\/p>\n

deep enough to mistake<\/span><\/p>\n

for kindness. He will ask, What do you want<\/span><\/p>\n

with your life? You\u2019ll say, I\u2019m going<\/span><\/p>\n

into computer science or engineering. Good<\/span><\/p>\n

boy, he\u2019ll respond, pat you on the back.<\/span><\/p>\n

There will be a painting hanging<\/span><\/p>\n

above the dining room table<\/span><\/p>\n

of Jesus. No, a cheap print. An uncle: It\u2019s those<\/span><\/p>\n

damn immigrants, I swear. An aunt:<\/span><\/p>\n

John, let\u2019s not. They will look at you.<\/span><\/p>\n

The light from the chandelier will be yellow.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n  <\/o:p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n

II.<\/span><\/p>\n

Your son will not be very bright, but it\u2019s all good.<\/span><\/p>\n

When you visit Korea, your cousins will<\/span><\/p>\n

tell him he has good genes, say,<\/span><\/p>\n

He\u2019s half-Korean after all.<\/span><\/p>\n

We Koreans are the most<\/span><\/p>\n

hardworking, so meticulous, even<\/span><\/p>\n

the damned Japanese couldn\u2019t beat<\/span><\/p>\n

that out of us. Your wife<\/span><\/p>\n

will smile, nod, whisper in your ear, begging<\/span><\/p>\n

you to translate. You will rub her back,<\/span><\/p>\n

nothing more. When your son races<\/span><\/p>\n

through water after school, makes<\/span><\/p>\n

team captain, you will tell him how<\/span><\/p>\n

he is a winner, oh how strong, and how brave.<\/span><\/p>\n

You and him will, together, give up on math.<\/span><\/p>\n

Late in the night, after he falls<\/span><\/p>\n

asleep, your wife will moan<\/span><\/p>\n

your name, as she did in the car<\/span><\/p>\n

all those years ago\u2014but not<\/span><\/p>\n

the one your grandmother can recognize<\/span><\/p>\n

or pronounce. You will never quite make her finish.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n  <\/o:p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n

III.<\/span><\/p>\n

As is typical, you will die<\/span><\/p>\n

before your wife. Simple statistics.<\/span><\/p>\n

By then, your son will marry a good American<\/span><\/p>\n

woman. He will have a job that requires<\/span><\/p>\n

decent intelligence. Nothing too<\/span><\/p>\n

demanding. Children, also. He\u2019ll host<\/span><\/p>\n

Thanksgiving dinners. His wife will prepare<\/span><\/p>\n

the turkey. Your funeral will be held in a church<\/span><\/p>\n

not too grand, not too small. The pastor will know you<\/span><\/p>\n

well enough to recognize your name, how he hadn\u2019t used it<\/span><\/p>\n

the past few Sundays. Your cousins<\/span><\/p>\n

will fly out from Korea, make a trip out of it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Your son will give a speech and vow to live<\/span><\/p>\n

with as much kindness as you did, although<\/span><\/p>\n

of course that\u2019s an impossible task.<\/span><\/p>\n

Your cousins will smile and weep politely.<\/span><\/p>\n

From the pews, your wife will whisper<\/span><\/p>\n

your name. She will mistake your name<\/span><\/p>\n

for you. On the stone tiles, the exotic<\/span><\/p>\n

light of stained glass. It will do<\/span><\/p>\n

what it always does: seduce fools.<\/span>\n <\/o:p>\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I. The first time you meet your wife\u2019s parents, they will invite you to Thanksgiving dinner. High school sweethearts, fucking in backseats, sneaking in through her window. Her family will be loud and large like an oven. Uncles, aunts, grandmothers, grandfathers. The women will be finishing up in the kitchen. Her father: balding with a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":893,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[206],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26477"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/893"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26477"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26477\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26480,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26477\/revisions\/26480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":26502,"date":"2026-08-15T10:00:31","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T14:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/?p=26502"},"modified":"2026-08-11T16:26:48","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T20:26:48","slug":"the-end-of-days","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/archives\/26502","title":{"rendered":"The End of Days"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I don\u2019t know if this is the last night<\/span><\/p>\n

     but I do know it is the end of this day:<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

          day hinged open in the valley of shadow,<\/span><\/p>\n

     day called switchback, called sunburn,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

called altitude sickness. Day turned<\/span><\/p>\n

on its side and sealed with the kiss<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

     of consolation. Day of ascent. Day<\/span><\/p>\n

          of peppermint beneath my tongue.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

     Day of mud on the snowpack. Day<\/span><\/p>\n

of drifting. Day of division\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

of an end to solitude. Sister,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span>     this day was mine. Amended, alight.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don\u2019t know if this is the last night      but I do know it is the end of this day:             day hinged open in the valley of shadow,      day called switchback, called sunburn,   called altitude sickness. Day turned on its side and sealed with the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":893,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[206],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26502"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/893"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26502"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26616,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26502\/revisions\/26616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":26486,"date":"2026-08-15T10:00:27","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T14:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/?p=26486"},"modified":"2026-08-11T16:23:21","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T20:23:21","slug":"notes-on-intimacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/archives\/26486","title":{"rendered":"NOTES ON INTIMACY"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

washing my roommate\u2019s
\nspoon that\u2019s been inside my roommate\u2019s
\nmouth, tell me
\nwhat\u2019s it like to believe in love?
\nhard to take you seriously within this font
\nthe day we met at the lake I knew you were the ____
\nlimbs of me fogged & bloating in the water
\nequally I identify as
\na crunchy plastic wrapper
\na misophonic uncle
\n\u2014I am not fun or good at adventure
\nthis just indicates how strongly we vibe
\na plush nitrile glove goes tap tap tap
\non the sink of my cheeks, the loop of my mouth
\nso lost I could chew through the hood of a car
\nI believe they call this resilience of some kind
\nI want you to respect me on a literal level & I know that\u2019s not
\neasy, I know we are just strangers eating popcorn
\non your couch,
\n& in many ways I am culturally ugly
\nlike tramp stamps, or
\nPutlocker movies,
\nin the throughputs of power
\nI found your name,
\n& some days I fantasize
\nabout getting fired
\nabout falling into a lake
\nabout watching little bears knit bras on the sidewalk
\nwhere a woman dressed like me cries into her phone
\n& I hope someone helped her, but
\nlike the rest of us
\nshe won\u2019t get the hang of this until it\u2019s over<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

washing my roommate\u2019s spoon that\u2019s been inside my roommate\u2019s mouth, tell me what\u2019s it like to believe in love? hard to take you seriously within this font the day we met at the lake I knew you were the ____ limbs of me fogged & bloating in the water equally I identify as a crunchy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":893,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[206],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26486"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/893"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26486"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26619,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26486\/revisions\/26619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":26597,"date":"2026-08-15T10:00:22","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T14:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/?p=26597"},"modified":"2026-08-11T16:32:56","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T20:32:56","slug":"solid-states","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/archives\/26597","title":{"rendered":"solid states"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

…how deeply we are mired in the Great Derangement: our lives and our choices are enframed in a pattern of history that seems to leave us nowhere to turn but towards our self-annihilation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014Amitav Ghosh, The Great Derangement <\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The delirium perishes when a patient is persuaded that things are only such as they are imagined. A radical recovery should be promised. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014<\/em>Denis Diderot, \u201cMelancholia,\u201d The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d\u2019Alembert, Collaborative  Translation Project<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the first sign of trouble: time hardens like ambrite. ugly signs at national parks meant to rough joy. time hardens with the heat. time hardens with the brainweathers. you still think in full thoughts even when the sky stinks with scum sun. wretched heat. your brain frame-dragging on spacetime.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

hardened gneiss you once saw a peewee perched in a birch tree by the edge of the lake.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

weyoo <\/em>you called out to the bird. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

bird\u2019s eye an open casket.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

time also hardens syntax and sick bodies slick with surplus flesh. the first sign of trouble: everything changed but not everything changes. nouns cycle with thermal kinesis of the ghostclimate within your chest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

your neighbour jan says the climate is always putting on new clothes. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

coffee cups envelop joyless hands. on the porch you are both unwitting beasts. on the porch six stones. on the porch saccharin mineralises your tongue while you count thousands of years in cicadas. jan has cataracts in her left eye. yours are in the right. what do you both fail to see? rumination zombies your zero-calorie language. repetition moulds your matter into unfamiliar shapes.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

black bile pools in your empty stomach. sometimes your anatomy embarrasses you. the roundness of your cheeks. the shallowness of your eggs. manes hide in your marrow. you hunger for everything and consume nothing but unlabelled metaphor.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

orchid everything is fine. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

fiction is sitcom but only the meteorologists are not laughing. nouns magnetise into strange pairings. birddrones in glasssky brick sun and transconfusions. even the squirrels are puzzled. too many melancholic winters have denuded the birch tree into an awkward skeleton. gregory bateson\u2019s distorted syllogisms litter the grey garden: men die. grass dies. men are grass.<\/em> you and jan watch the birds alight on the feed tray. light on their feet they eat. they eat. they eat. they leave seed carcasses on the ground.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the first sign of trouble: slimification.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

verbs condense into fundamental states of matter with a tendency toward cold flow. first the trinititesky creeprains safetyyellow gel although they warned no one of this strange force on the radio. rainfall at 11. <\/em>you take foul pills to calm yourself. you wash off the sickness of their blue with sparkling water. your poor brainengine coughs like a broken radiator. still your body is light although you wrap poundage around your stomach. is this true?<\/em> you wonder. at times reality suffers suspicion of its mirrors.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

you slide from the entrance onto the porch as if you own this crackled body. this morning you sit on the bottom step. five stones three quaters on the calcifying timber. you read diderot\u2019s encyclop\u00e9die <\/em>like a metaphor. <\/em>too close to your face you can smell the weathered pages. too engrossed to notice the brittling of air until a sudden lightning strike fossilises on the window. berylliumsky skips but so far you remain uncracking. the brownness of the thunder oozes with astonishment. then it happens: big glops of aerogel hit your head and make burlaps of your gross hair. now you are terrified. the stuck air issues its injunction. you skry indoors from this viscous disaster. the elasticity of the gelrain leaves temporary deformations on porch surfaces. soon everything is slimy with fell: the grass, the trees, the empty pots with the rot of last summer\u2019s flowers. the peewee at the bird feeder bends delicately under the weight of thickened gravity. opening its wings, it topples over the railing. you repeat the sound of the rain until you experience semantic satiation: nice nice nice nice nice nice nice nice.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

how can you describe the scene?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

how do you apprehend this alien knowledge of your body?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

you are not patient.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

diderot describes a patient who believed he had legs of glass<\/em> and made no movement. <\/em>for now your body flows like gallium even if syntax has the consistency of pitch. soon description tars your mouth. you watch the strange thickening outside your window. it covers the dirt with hunger. it covers the dirt. it covers. horrified, the encyclop\u00e9die<\/em> slips from your hand. you are an impossible object. paranoia gains a pronoun.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the first sign of trouble: solidification.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

you begin to stiffen into stone.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

the slimerain surged for several days, shoved everyone into troubled silence. you held your climate behind your ribs but in front of your slowing heart. you digested anxious thoughts in your barren stomach. but now the waterlight from your body seems composed of solid particles. <\/em>magnetised by attraction, words are first agitated by quick action, then violently cohere without predicative expression. when the rain finally stops everyone is noticeably harder. is this real?<\/em>you wonder. solid principles <\/em>form a basis for contrary truths. <\/em>how many stones do you have today on the rotten wood of your porch? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

the indoorness of your living room burdens the existence of the outdoorness of your body. you have had enough. you need air and fluid motion. you leave carefully from the front entrance. you lock your door. your mass a dense assemblage of continuous parts <\/em>but you breathe desire in the gestalt of rigidifying air. everything feels alkalotic: the porch, the road, your car, the flies, the ants. a greasy biofilm coats the trees and sticks birds to the branches. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

you shuffle cautiously to the lakefront, swing one leg out in a circle then the other because you cannot bend your knees. it takes two hours to walk the straight mile. your aggregate\u2019s imperfection<\/em> always lies in material defect<\/em>. when you reach the beach you search the shoreline: it is quieter today. a woman bending low to pick shells. a girl pulling her hand with a flat stone into a slow-motion throw. a fisherman on the wharf osseously casts his line to the water. you watch it bounce on the spongey surface.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

you watch. you watch. you watch.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

you heave an arm to wave but it reaches only to your waist. you don\u2019t want to appear rude although the beachgoers already ignore you. you remind yourself as jan once did that you are too nice <\/em>to your hateful neighbours. nice nice nice nice nice nice nice. <\/em>on your tenth watch your brainpitch has yet to drop. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

you are not curious. when you reach the lake\u2019s edge you put your foot on the viscid surface. it deforms gently under the weight. your aggregate is not homogenous with this strange water. the surface tension resists your force; striations form on the fluid skin. your foot cannot break the solidifying water even if the pressure applied is positive. the climatic heat causes an adhesion or cohesion that further increases the resistance.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

how do you provide end-of-life care for an entire species? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

how deranged are you yet? <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

time hardens like lechatelierite forged by line arcing. you retreat from the shore\u2019s spiny edge. the woman is now clutching her shell. her ashlar body resetting. the girl is ready to fling her stony flying wing. the fisherman is still but his eyes follow you as if you are a weak element of knowledge. the carbonsky solidifies with each step. each movement and hand gesture you make cuts the agony of your stones. slowly you retire back to your house.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

you walk. you walk. you walk.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

you greet yourself when you return.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the bitumen is alive.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

the first sign of trouble: thick deposits appeared in the valley one night but no one ever saw them move. each night they have inched closer to your street. this morning they have finally surrounded your neighbours\u2019 houses. they have blocked the roads with their oily murmurations.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

there is a colony at the bottom of your driveway. you have already stared at them for an hour hoping to catch their migrations. you don\u2019t want to miss this pitch drop. you shift your eyes only for a second but when you return your gaze the black rocks have rolled up the incline and barricaded your garage. no one however seems particularly concerned. jan claims that she has hardly noticed them. <\/em>you have. they burrow into your brain like biddybids. it is only a small increment of crack extension. a driving affection for solids, your eyes can only blink in anger.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the first sign of trouble: the lake has completely hardened.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

time striates like gneiss. jan tells you over the phone. she is sure that it is nothing orchid. how\u2019s the teaching? <\/em>you transform under high pressure. each crack yields to another. <\/em>the radio is mostly silent now. it went off-air sometime the week prior. even its static has tonnage.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

when you try to fill your kettle the faucet gargles dried light. bands have now appeared on your arms. they alternate between dark and light. you conduct a geological survey of your body. what you find is metamorphic. what is crazier? climate or madness? the absence of your lungs insist that you are not eligible for humanity. your brain petrifies with ire. you are critically unresolved. you are after all a scratch test. still you hunger for your laughter.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

time hardens like fulgurites. different kinds of solids appear alongside the bitumen. the papers hold a competition to name them. the prizes are the verbs that slowly disintegrate from a communal vocabulary. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

cardinalode.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

catignite (jan suggested catode). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

spleenwortock.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

lichenode.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

coyotenite.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

chinkapinock.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

bushcloverite.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

bearite. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

paperstone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

celltone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

deerite. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

squirrium. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

dogite. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

sparrowine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

lightose. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

roseshale. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

blightine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

buttonbusharl. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

oakate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

your favourite: humanite. it vibrates gently in the darkness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the first sign of trouble: the bitumen has taken over the classroom.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

it now takes you two days to arrive on campus since the gasoline in your car has returned to the memory of its plankton. when you arrive for your 8:10 freshman seminar you find a lump of bitumen already at the front of the room. you don\u2019t permit electronics but the bitumen has allowed your students to use their cell phones and computers. their gneiss fingers smash heavily their keyboards. a calcified copy of Allison Cobb\u2019s Plastic <\/em>has collapsed the front table. you assume the bitumen is teaching \u201cInfinity\u201d since that chapter is today\u2019s assigned reading. you are an uncomfortable object. even the carbon in your cells is ringing.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

you cannot understand the bitumen\u2019s language if it has one. you listen. you listen. you listen. only your lump hums. when you try to approach the lectern you feel time like waterglass. evidentiality has become uncertain. your circumstantial body slumps onto the floor like pitch. did you miss this drop?<\/em> you wonder.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

the students do not seem to care. they are watching videos on their cell phones. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

time hardens like shotcrete. the birds are falling from the sky. their bodies shatter schist on the greying ground.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

jan and the other neighbours attempted to leave the valley this morning. you watched her from the window. she made it to the end of her driveway before she gneissed upon the concrete.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

she lies supine among other stony bodies. what is this detailed explanation of the system of human knowledge<\/em>? you stare. you stare. you stare. you are still waiting for the tenth drop. four and a half stones lie on the porch. you hold their poundage by the weight. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

the neighbours have left their doors open and now the bitumen can enter their houses. soon they will drive their cars. they will leave for their jobs in the morning. they will return in the evenings. bags of groceries in the popped car boots. pitch children will exit school buses. already they play hopscotch in the street although you never see them move. you miss them no matter how intently you watch from the window. you think they even wave at you after they land on number five.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

time sinters into heterodiamonds. the bitumen has completely overwhelmed the community. a lump entered your home when you forgot to lock the door. it sleeps in your bed while you must sleep on the floor. it cooks pasta on the stove. you never see the pitch in motion but you find warm meals on the kitchen counter. by now the bitumen has devoured your encyclop\u00e9die<\/em>. a thick streak of carbon marks the carpet which you don\u2019t bother to clean up.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

you talk nonsense to the rock on your sofa but you are unsure if it replies. you are too nice for your own good <\/em>jan once said. monsters are deviations of nature or history. when you turn away you can hear it changing tv channels. there is nothing on-air anymore. each channel displays bitumen in various scenarios: the news broadcast, a comedy show, a police drama, a medical soap opera. nice nice nice nice nice nice nice.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

how can you describe this broken chain of knowledge<\/em>? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

are you incapable of all light and all instruction?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

no one said you were a smart fluid, orchid. you are already a casualty. forget the pre- and post-, the mid-apocalypse is always boring. and here you are: still waiting for the next drop. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

you do not buy food anymore. when you hunger you watch the pitch.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the first sign of trouble: twilight is a walking ghost.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

you cannot stay here. heat has hardened brainspacetime.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

nature always acts by the simplest means <\/em>and time feels ceramic. <\/em>you carry three stones from the porch. you slowly crawl from the bitumen\u2019s house to the lake. it takes you all day to cover the full mile. prone, you drag your gneiss body. the leaverite on the wharf has completely hardened although his eyes still follow you as you move. both the woman and girl are cairns. the surface of the water is stone: hard and malicious. air bubbles surprised in a moment of bursting. they are trapped at the alien hardening. your gneiss body. your stone. peer down and you see fixed fish fossilised under the crust. you roll over. turn supine you weakly raise an arm. you split yourself against rock but never reach below inhuman surface.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

how does this ontology emanate from nature? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

what kind of geological record are you? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

you have to move forward<\/em> you think. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

you have to keep watching. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

weyoo<\/em> said the bird as if a stone were in it.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

…how deeply we are mired in the Great Derangement: our lives and our choices are enframed in a pattern of history that seems to leave us nowhere to turn but towards our self-annihilation.  \u2014Amitav Ghosh, The Great Derangement   The delirium perishes when a patient is persuaded that things are only such as they are imagined. A radical recovery should be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":893,"featured_media":26598,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16],"tags":[206],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26597"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/893"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26597"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26711,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26597\/revisions\/26711"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":26497,"date":"2026-08-15T10:00:19","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T14:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/?p=26497"},"modified":"2026-08-11T16:25:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T20:25:11","slug":"what-is-it-about-double-wides-hydrocodone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/archives\/26497","title":{"rendered":"What is it about double-wides & hydrocodone?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\n \n \n \n Rime grows the seam
of two halves\u2014the split an atrophy\u2014
bathrooms in one world and a gulch
in another. Ruth\u2019s ghost is a recliner, blacked out

and all the way back. My grandmother
raises my skin and I hear the creak, her <\/span>
antique chair, her arms purging hypromellose:
I\u2019ve been really good lately<\/em>.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rime grows the seamof two halves\u2014the split an atrophy\u2014bathrooms in one world and a gulchin another. Ruth\u2019s ghost is a recliner, blacked out and all the way back. My grandmotherraises my skin and I hear the creak, her antique chair, her arms purging hypromellose:I\u2019ve been really good lately.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":893,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[206],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26497"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/893"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26497"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26617,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26497\/revisions\/26617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}},{"id":26522,"date":"2026-08-15T10:00:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T14:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/?p=26522"},"modified":"2026-08-11T16:29:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T20:29:00","slug":"ars-poetica-in-hiding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/archives\/26522","title":{"rendered":"Ars Poetica in Hiding"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"the<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":893,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[11],"tags":[206],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26522"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/893"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26522"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26541,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26522\/revisions\/26541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejournalmag.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}]