place before you the vajra of no dissuasion

“i’m not really doing any dairy alternatives. but i’m not drinking dairy.” “i’m doing laundry today, but just because i need underwear.” “i have to go there for a few days. yah, for work. i’ll be back Sunday.” “i just realized i already nicked them. and i got, like, a gel manicure. fuck. i wanted them to last. i’ll just put clear polish on it. so i don’t pick at it. fuck. i wanted them to grow. my nails. if i put thicker clear polish on them, i won’t bite them.” “ok, let’s go so we can get breakfast. i’m wearing white pants. ok, yah but i’m wearing white pants. they’re serving breakfast now. ok, let’s got so we can get breakfast.” “byee”…

every seat has power. every seat has a few different types of plug. a few different ways to get power. to charge up the battery of whatever device you have. whatever the connection type. within reason, whatever the connection type, but within reason. there are many different connections. it isn’t reasonable to expect the seat to have every type of connection. every plug type. an ability to charge and/or power anything, everything.

mostly you’d like to sleep. avoidant. they tell you they think you to be avoidant. your attachment style. in the morning you are stunned at the cold. in the morning in the sun it isn’t so cold yet you are stoked like fire, by the cold. sun slurps in through little gaps in the buildings. tiny slivers between leaves. you walk and pool yourself into these little dapplings. you are stunned in the same way that the generosity of others stuns you. you are bright with your stunning. you are quiet in your cold. silent. the sound of your feet, shod in their protective coverings, striking the ground. a slight swish of material against material, your arm swings as you walk, it brushes repeatedly, rhythmically, against your torso, the material at your torso. mostly you’d like to sleep. you have been invited to go to a show. a music show. you have been invited to go to a city in a foreign country, a city on a piece of land just like the piece you are now on, a piece of land just forty five minutes of driving beyond an invisible line that is drawn upon paper, that is guarded by gun by shield by law. all of it, made up.

it is colder here than where you just were. you spent a full twenty four hours getting from there to here. you do not know why you have made the trip. a few times during the travel, a few times, already, already a few times since arriving here, you have wondered, stunned by generosity, at why you have come. what you are to be doing. mostly you’d like to sleep. you brought along the legal papers that will allow you through the invisible line, past the shields and the guns. the dogs tasked with a specificity of smelling. you have brought along your different layers. you have brought along your attachments. a few different plugs. your attachment style, they say, from the brief time you and they were around each other, is avoidant. you fall in love quickly, easily, they say, and you do not connect. you want to but do not. do not know how and do not want to risk it. so you avoid it while also centering yourself upon it. you make the effort to introduce yourself, sometimes. for example, sometimes you say hello and say your name, say why it is you have said hello. you are interested in their art or you are interested in the conversation you shared when you were fully strange to each other. you say who you are, say that you enjoy their art or enjoy the brief conversation that has been already shared. you ask if they’d like to discuss art contribute art to one of your projects that would perhaps benefit from their art. you ask if they’d like to expand upon the conversation that you already shared. allot an increase in shared time and space in which an expansion or at least a continuance may occur. you put in the effort. mostly you’d like to sleep.

“that’s the great part, my wife cooks Congolese food.” “she get’s stressed out about it, ha, ya, it’s a massive thing. lot’s of different options. lot’s of different, you know, foods. but. yah.” “what about you?””you know how i can tell you are in the clergy? by the way you act. your aura. the shimmering that comes from you. ha. yah.”

you slept early so you woke in the incongruity of shifting time zone. one time here, another time there. you in both time zones and neither. you wake in the middle of the night. the early part of the middle of night. you look at the time. you laugh to yourself, one short ‘ha’. one expulsion of breath, vibrated to sound. not a laugh. a laugh. your mind spun out as it does. it gave to you thoughts, some of which you felt to be interesting or useful or somehow worthy of remembering. you want to sleep but cannot. you press on the small orange light clipped to your book. open your book. read your book. wondering about sleep. maybe hoping even, about sleep. you read for thirty minutes forty five minutes bumping up near an hour. it is still night’s middle. your eyelids are no longer fully open but slip down towards your eye’s middle. you press off the small orange light clipped to your book. in the dark you try to set your book on the small table next to the bed. you have been in this same bed before and still it is your first time in this bed. more than seven hundred days elapsed since last in it. you have another book already on the small table. you try to silently set the book on the table. in the dark you place the book half on the book already set upon the table. the book you set down, slips off. you hear it fall dryly onto the floor. you think of leaves. it does not make much noise. you shut your eyes fully in the still middle of night. in the morning you are walking in the stun of generous cold. you remember to remember the thoughts you thought worth remembering during your pause of wakefulness in last night’s middle. you cannot remember.

“we are both menstruating right now” “that’s something they definitely needed to know” “we are thinking of going to Japan instead of New Zealand” “yah” “they went to Japan and were the loudest ones there. they said they were the loudest ones there. that sounds fun” “is the wedding this weekend? will you close the shop for the whole weekend? if this is too funky, i’m gonna freak out” “it is the funkiest one you could have ordered, but there is a threshold for how funky coffee can be” “i like it”

mostly you’d like to sleep. when you are there you are bored and you complain. you want what is not there. cucumbers. organic cucumbers. not a single seven dollar organic cucumber. movies. single-origin light roast coffee beans. the ability to buy a pour over. you won’t buy the pour over, you’ll buy just another few shots mixed with heated and frothed milk, but still you want the option. you develop an identity around not really quite liking so much what is there, where you are. wherever you are. makes little difference. someone enters the shop who you recognize. it is a much larger town from where you just were, but still it is a small town. you feel an impulse to make an effort. to ask them where it is you recognize them from. to talk to them in a way so as to inspire or allow for connection. some kind of attachment. so you can avoid it. you recall thinking you once were very drawn to them. their round face. the cheeks that remain chubby long into adulthood. their face like a child’s, somewhat, some features you associate with that of a child’s. you notice them as they walk in and notice that you remember them, recognize them. you notice some of the subtle changes to their physical form as wrought by time, by age. you look but do not stare. it is a small space you are in. it is a much larger town than where you spend most of your time these days, but it is still a small town. you look away look over look down. notice their shoes. notice that you feel their shoes somewhat discordant with the rest of what they wear. this fascinates you. you quickly forget it. the caffeine commingles with the chemicals you take to keep yourself from falling into a nothingness with no bottom. to keep yourself from so much energy that you fizz into hospital into financial ruin into feigned intimacies with others that you will come to regret. once the energy singes you. once you cool off. once you are stunned by the generous. the chemicals mix together and your mind holds on and then slacks itself blank. you watch an older couple walk by outside. your teeth twang in a way that makes you think of sugar. makes you think of cavity. makes you think of a plug, a connection, electricity, energy, shared back and forth. as you are here you will go to a movie. a few movies, if that seems reasonable. if there are few that seem worth seeing. you will spend time with others, you will work to re-establish or fortify connections. you mostly feel like sleeping. you are exhausted by your own thoughts, your own opinions. still you will discuss music or politics or social ideas and you will find yourself maybe briefly sparked. and quickly dampened. you will be in your body, nodding your head, moving your limbs around. you will feel hunger. you will feel want. and you will watch your body as you move out of it. you will use hunger as a way to move out. you will watch yourself eat, for example. you will watch yourself talk, nod, smile, furrow. you will be there and you will be held just away. your desire to connect will work together with your desire to avoid. they will commingle like the different chemicals your body produces and that you ingest as an attempt to influence your body, the reality it creates. the coffee tastes like sour fruit and you switch the focus of your eyes back and forth, from the people walking outside, to the plant, its leaves, just a scatter of inches in front of you. your mind will do the same, switching from what is in front of you to what is distant. what you can take and make distant. you hear people who sit near you talking, laughing. it seems the laughter is genuine, generous. this stuns you. the cup is still warm in your hand. were it hot, you would hold your hand against it, and pull it away. hold against, and pull away.

“best diet coke in town” “then the guy says, ‘what?’” “then he says it again, but the guy still doesn’t hear him” “now i work that line in, ‘best diet coke in town’, into many of the things i say. so that i can hear people say, ‘what?’” all laugh. all laugh. it seems genuine. you yourself, on the inside, silently, laugh.

black washed out faded on-trend jeans. not cuffed but cut. white strings of fabric hanging in a shag down by the shoes. the shoes, black high tops with white stripes, white toe cap, white laces. the black worn to more of a gray. the white worn to more of a gray. black hair tied loosely back. a green fuzzy twist of fabric. black long sleeved sweater. black quilted vest over top, unbuttoned, unsnapped, open, all along the front. hands holding several bags of coffee beans. mouth held in smile. mouth holding and releasing words, questions about the coffee. a piece of cut mineral in a band of melted and hewn mineral, on the finger. significant. meaningful. a symbol to say without saying. you look, you watch, you listen. then, away. you spent a lot of money, a lot of time, to get here. you should do something. many things. mostly you’d like to sleep.