2026 raze two thin sticks of snow-dipped protein left a dent in the duvet that covers almost_everything now, and from their intervention and the work of some larger but no less agile wild thing, a face was formed, imperfect and ephemeral and unmistakably itself. i took a picture before salt and new tears from a torn sky ate away at what was there. looking at it now, i can't quite work out if the expression i'm seeing indicates happiness or horror. maybe both things can live inside the same moment, pushing against each other until they find they have nowhere to go but deeper into the embrace they've done all they can to avoid. and maybe this is all i can hope to pry from the pores of a year that hasn't yet lived long enough to give itself a name worth burning above the number branded on its back. 260101 what's it to you? who go blather from