"No chrome without winter, no New Year, no white baldachin strung out above the altar, wood painted white, carved angels singing for twelve hours straight in that choir, no hours, no altar, no slick white glyphs of blades on ice, stunts of red fireworks, or corrugated heart projected bright on the screen, no twin votives by which you held me and said, I want to feel this way all of the time."
"No all of the time. Just brief suspensions, sharp lung of breath, my blue car swan-diving through an exit off the highway, like last year, what scraped off the windshield to the asphalt was indistinguishable from glass, in its act of shattering, in the pressure of discernment, of your experience, the buttons of your shirt I undo to scatter on the ground; they lodge in the floorboards like seeds."
Holiday and religious imagery—chrome, winter, New Year, white baldachin, altar, carved angels—appear alongside domestic and cinematic images: screens, fireworks, projected hearts. A remembered intimate moment appears: twin votives, a partner holding someone, a wish to feel permanence. The assertion of desire collapses into a refusal of constancy: No all of the time. Memory fractures into a sudden, corporeal scene: a blue car swan-diving off a highway exit, windshield debris scraping the asphalt, indistinguishable from glass in its shattering. Sensory pressure and emotional discernment mingle as intimate gestures—undoing buttons—scatter like seeds across floorboards.
Read at The Atlantic
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