i'm_trying tender_square i swallowed the dream leaf as directed, waited for its roots to wrap round my medulla oblongata as my dried-out body curled against the sheets for sleep. blue pill first. red pill four hours later. in the first dream, i walked past a series of cubicles and not a single one would do—what i searched for was the four walls of a stall. i awoke in the embrace of 2 am, my old friend. i swallowed the red pill. in the second dream, i waded through water fishing through my wallet for colorful bills to pay for added time on a rented paddle board. * he and i are on opposite poles, pulling. the herbs arrived by post, a box of bags vacuum sealed, the buds of dried flowers packed within. “it’s not the money,” he said. “it’s just that you’re getting deeper into it, adding more things.” i’m preparing for a new moon ritual bath, a time ripe for catalyzing new intention. he asked me to explain my beliefs, an interrogation as he sat at the head of the bed and i at the foot. “it sounds an awful lot like ‘the secret’,” he said. “all that maintaining of positivity.” it’s about feeling everything; it's about being present. * i peel the blackened skins from the sweetened bananas and lop them with a knife into the wet mixture. isaac brock sings in the background as i stir. polar opposites don’t push away, it’s the same on the weekends as the rest of the days and i know, i should go, but i’ll probably stay and that’s all you can do about some things i’m trying, i’m trying to drink away the part of the day that i cannot sleep away i’m trying, i’m trying to drink away the part of the day that i cannot sleep away * “i’m more abstract than you are, which is why i’m so surprised that you’re drawn to it; it feels like it should be more *my* thing,” he said. i consider this a gradual move toward the inferior functions of my personality—sensate experiences, allowing for what is less concrete—a necessary process in becoming whole. “i’m anxious about this,” he revealed. “people don’t have ideas; ideas have people.” and, yet i don’t force what is mine onto him. “that’s the issue; if i don’t follow you, we’re going to exist on these opposite ends further away from one another.” he keeps waiting for life to go back to the way it was four years ago, a time that is forever lost. he doesn’t want evolution, he wants to turn back the clock on the way it used to be. * sleep is a refuge. i drink spirit in to stay afloat. our walls are washed in beige and i want a new feeling. the tuffed titmouse sings a song each morning to me that says “let go of the past, worry less about the future.” 211030 what's it to you? who go blather from