twinge of desire to open the phone, forage twitter (forbidden mechanically for most of most days), forage the feeds, open myself to nutrients and flavors. I think about opening my phone because maybe I’ll see something interesting. but instead, despite I’m sure there being some interesting things blooming, the forests themselves are dead and smoking, so that instead of any pleasant shade as respite from the heat of my own thoughts, the sun hisses down and the soft bottoms of my shoes melt to the asphalt. There’s no pleasure in it. We can be hungry and learn to eat trash. We can crave the sweet juice of the firefly and instead try to sip from the sawblade’s sparks. I’m moved by impulses I never wanted. Parasites inside steer me toward their food. I wanted to live deeply, obnoxiously in the pleasures of complex thought. To a fault. “I thought I wasn’t allowed to have my own thoughts. Or enjoy them, anyway.” Instead all the wrong things are complicated. I have a useful mind. Sharp. Curse the world that turns our blades against us. Desperate to sell us out. I am not my parasites. I am not the vast emptiness. “The obligation of memory and a large number of grave questions.” But whose do I have to ask?