thirty-one

m&ms sealed in packaging for more than a decade, crumbling into chalky dust with only traces of the facsimile of food slipping between my fingers. the dog would lick my hands clean afterwards, pressing a moist tongue into the cracks in my palms, filling the gaps gouged by the wind. leftovers went into the trash. leftovers went down the drain. it was harder to return the packaging into the state that it came in than it was to rip open to begin with. how can things seem so much larger on the inside?

trash expands to fill all available space. we are just machines for absorbing nutrients and facts and exuding garbage. once, in the desert, i stood at the base of a growing plateau of trash; in the distant, dump trucks clanked, driving across the top of the mesa until they found an edge. a load would tumble off the ledge until it reached the sandy floor, until it made a platform to support more trash, and more full trucks. sometimes i'd be in the caves underneath and feel the walls groan with bearing the extra weight.

it is hard to forget things; it is easy to add things. living is additive.

18 February 2018 18:31