dream_ghosts ovenbird I see in a dream, for perhaps the first time ever, my Gidu. He doesn’t speak to me. He’s putting pies in the microwave at a family gathering. He tries to pile one pie on top of another so more will fit in at the same time. I stop him. “They’ll get crushed,” I say. He sets a pie aside. It’s an unexpected kind of nightmare, where nothing tries to hurt me, but I miss this opportunity for a meaningful connection. Here I am, given a chance to speak to my dead grandfather, and all I do is tell him not to pile pies on top of each other. It’s such a ridiculous waste I could cry. I didn’t even see his face, just the back of his head, with wisps of white hair, as he stood before the glowing microwave. But maybe life is like this too. We think we have so much time so we’re focused on blueberry pie instead of the people standing right in front of us. If I could repeat my life I would say all the “i love yous” that now sit heavy in my heart, unsaid, and unsayable. 250527 ... ovenbird My Baba has visited in dreams twice over the past week but I can remember only the fact of her presence, nothing more. My dream ghosts are so insubstantial that they leave no impression that I can carry into the morning. It seems that the most effective exorcism is a profound desire to be haunted. 251202 ... raze in this nested narrative, the digits i've dialled aren't anyone's. an area code is followed by the smallest positive integer of the infinite sequence of natural numbers, repeated until the impossible happens: a signal is sent to some other realm, and a soul stuck in limbo answers the call. my grandfather. his voice is as frail as his body was when it gave out fifteen years ago. "hello?" he says. not a greeting, but a terrified question. i don't know what to say. i can't handle hearing him sound so alone. i hang up the phone. 251227 what's it to you? who go blather from