There is nothing like an opaque vellum future envelope layered loss to remind us of how patterns of sun refract quietly, sparkling & radiating white heat through obfuscated glass. This old sun summoning our prescient hearts. Pretending windows holding inner tumult intact. Life-giving & destructive rays writing stories from ancient fires. It’s a big part of how everything in this multiverse is made. Illuminating the present, history, the entirety of next possibilities.

Your breathless chants.

My screaming quiet palindromes repeated to myself & into my own fat & fascia. Finding guts to process forever falls with. Connective words: the activated cells I couldn’t convey to you.

Goodbyes are for lucky people. Greetings are for cards & calligraphy. Convex lettering. Ink dreams. ‘Thank you,’ the text says. So simple. Most expressions of profundity aren’t this easy.

Please don’t think that I wouldn’t appreciate a job writing captions inside of smooth anticipating folded cardstock. Maybe I’d turn familiar pithiness to say real & unsarcastic words about celebrations & thankings, more than about the inside of certain moments or grippings onto symbolic days.

You wrote a poignant letter in tired, earnest print. I replied with something brief & pretty; encased in glitter, produced in my practiced cursive.

© Niliema Karkhanis

Image: https://unsplash.com/@rinckad