it is the space where the tectonic plates are moving, and the gravitational pull has shifted and everything i used to know about how our words flowed back and forth has been shifted through the dirt and the soil down into the core, it is there, but unattainable.

Then there is the fact that I am looking at the stars differently. I used to strain to see the faintest, stare steady so that in any instant i will not miss a thing and now instead I let them wash over me and consume me. I take comfort in their quiet chaos, the reminder.

Settling can happen by particle. It can happen while pushing the back of your teeth with your tongue, your eyes narrowing, and momentarily deciding not tonight, not this moment. And something inside you burrows down from the tip of your tongue, busy shaping the back of your teeth like the ocean turning shards into sea glass, down through the front of your throat, cast straight through your sternum, and out through the curve of your back, there is relief and there is lack.

and the drilling of your teeth feels like nothing but the blast of cold air penetrates your spine.