disillusionment ovenbird At my high_school_reunion I wander into a classroom furnished with a four_poster_bed, made up with cozy quilts and thick pillows. Two women are already wrapped up in feather duvets. I join them there and we tell each other the stories of who we were as teenagers and the dreams we had for our futures. Futures are not compliant, it seems. None of us are where we expected to be. I, for instance, did not expect to be tucked into bed with two random strangers at my high school reunion. But it runs deeper than that. I once carried an idealism that has been slowly murdered by the sharp knife of living. I believed that my education would equip me with profound investigative tools that I could use to explore the fascinating nuances of humanity. I feel disappointed by the lack of opportunity I have had to exercise my literary sensibilities. I launch into an impassioned speech, while my blanket clad audience listens politely. “I thought I would spend my life devoted to reading books,” I say. “I thought I would immerse myself in language and words until they became inextricably bound to my life’s purpose. I believed that a devotion to beauty would have practical applications. I wanted to spend my days studying the intersection between words and lino prints, between words and solar photography, between words and the historical significance of pears. I wanted to see what effect language had on astrophysics and bumblebee funerary practices. I aimed towards a deep knowledge of the places where words overlapped with leaf tectonics and cherry cheesecake. I submitted a number of papers to literary journals, but no one would publish my work.” I stop here, and sigh. I’m holding a sheet of lined paper covered in a handwritten list of all the dreams I had for my narratively inspired mind. The women in bed with me smile in a distracted way. I crumple the paper, put it in my mouth, and eat it. 250922 what's it to you? who go blather from