an undetermined number of frames per second

the house shudders at night. a reminder that the world is turning. two weeks turns into three then six then half a year’s gone by without me noticing. they say time passes faster the older you get, so i stay up late at night to catch my breath. i've been at my job for a whole year now. half the people i started with have left. to send them off i have bought enough hershey's kisses and kitschy paperweights to fill up an entirely new desk. on drives back home, every tail light beyond me blurs soft and slow. i could be imagining it, but i’m desperate for edges where the world is kinder and less defined. these days i say yes to everything, even when i'm stretched thin. i go out thrice a week. to dinner, to buy flowers, to freeze up when it's my turn to sing. when i think of being pulled in all directions, i think of the stories where you scream at the water before the sun rises— running at life with everything you have. to ease the process of learning how to use my words again, i loop a…