what are your nonnegotiables the meditation app asked i was stunned i am all negotiable i’ve turned this body concave like a despairing schiele accommodating all borders cut into by all corners to become all but corners this country through which straight lines were drawn regardless of spirit or water flows what are my nonnegotiables some stability a little grace a verse of poetry a little candour but then i start negotiating these are just nice to have all form no substance i don’t know i’ve lived in a hologram for so long i can no longer tell bulk and boundary apart but that’s the point, i, the physicist, say, they’re the same i can prove it even though it’s confounding i can prove it even though it’s unintuitive i can prove it even though it’s easy to get lost i can prove i finally cried the other night not like that time immediately after you told me i love you but i can’t be with you not the tears of release but those of a deeper etching resurfacing waters reclaiming the horizon maybe this should be another poem but what am i to write if not about you what am i to question if not my falls what am i to trace if not our motions i tried in my mind to reconstruct your smile and it was a struggle half-asleep to recall the shape of your small mouth that could never contain all of my sadness
what are your nonnegotiables
