we accidentally imagine

by andrew yoon

seed 4453138

it is 2025. we wonder what to say next, and the wind is still blowing.

twelve.

fixed link mutable link
we never seem to notice
the changes until they've
already happened. or at least
they are well into
happening. we wonder why that is:
the clouds evaporating and
the sun coming out, the air
getting so slightly warmer; a
single row of bricks painted a
different color. who the behinds
through before how's and where
when whenever the
againagain the words repeatingly
as we notice a little
cottonfluff drifting toward us. it
sticks to our ink, and we ask
again where meaning comes
from. a million coins being
thrown every instant, fields
of possibility so
terrifyingly wide staring us in the
eye so intensely we have to
look away and we notice this
little bug just flying around,
landing, and flying around
again. flying, landing, and
flying around again.

twenty five.

fixed link mutable link
mistakes. the
conversation a little mistakes.
outside becoming heated aren't
listening pretend we repetition
getting a to pretend we aren't
listening repetition getting a
little pretend best listening
. getting best to a
accurate, with fewer mistakes
with becoming heated while
the on outside do while we do
our repetition getting. we
do our best to pretend
heated do going the mistakes
conversation faster and with fewer
heated while our while we do our
aren't listening. every
repetition getting we repetition
little listening , little
listening while the conversation
going

three.

fixed link mutable link
how did we get here? the
questions which keep making their
way inside our mouths as if
we never could learn from
the last time we couldn't
answer and instead only become
more unhappy and began to
throw things at the walls with
some inexpressible anger
screaming and shouting with a red
face and bulging veins,
fists again and again against
the door not even caring
what's on the other side, too
caught up with the idea of the
door being there in the first
place another why and another
if causing the lights to
flicker and the stove to begin to
smell like something is
burning so we all try to remember
what we had done in the
kitchen last but we can't
remember, and even the attempts to
remember make us shout with fewer
words, make us scream with our
fingers and pound harder and
harder on the door while the
wood is splintering here and
there and the doorframe
appears to budge this time or
that time or this time again
and again and again

seventeen.

fixed link mutable link
marbles in a glass bowl,
not going anywhere in
particular seeming to wonder where
the birds get their
melodies, their strange rhythms
tinkling or rubbing cardboard.
the dark bottle looking
right back, eyes glimmering
so loudly with the
sunlight or fluorescent
flickerings or uncharged
batteries. the lithium looking for
water. how's this different?
asking between colorshades
and subject matter like it
were important or something
or something or something
or anothersong
thismomentingly or an old box of cereal,
casting shadows longer than
expected somehow while the light
reflects in its own color onto the
walls and the nearby desk
surface, papers scattered from
months before piled over each
other, some important some not
so much, some with colors
and blindly drawn
paintings and some printed out
from an old black and white
laser jet printer, whatever
that means, whatever those
meaning.

zero.

fixed link mutable link
and all at once things
are so quiet, a tiny hiss
from the walls, distant
clanging of a ventilation fan. we
breathe with the sunlight,
passing clouds causing these
little pulses in the sunglow
and somehow we feel it in our
toes even though we can't
quite tell why the wind
chooses the pitches it sings
against the window, why one
harmony should point to
another, why every story has some
sort of climax where
elements and trajectories
culminate into some bigger thing
as if we had been heading
there all along as if there
were some kind of purpose
behind the penscratches or
where this leaf decides to
fall in this rotting pile we
notice a pain in our lower back
from bad posture and some
strange sense of pressure from
the bottom of our right foot
now the ventilation fan
slowing down into a periodic
banging; we notice a coin lying on
the ground but we can't make
out which side it landed on.
do we care? is it good to
care? would it matter if we
knew? we are staring at the
coin and the coin is staring
back.

twenty seven.

fixed link mutable link
now the floorboard
dents now we notice hands
ourselves where they and ask
ourselves ourselves where they
came what wooden and scrape
wooden every of freckle and in
the, if behind behind
happened, it on purpose of if
things close our. eyes we our
that outside our bodies that
open the windows feel now we
notice small now we notice
small dents dents we small
dents in and each each groove
what and walls along each
groove every scratch on

one.

fixed link mutable link
and just like that, the
page turns for us. the next
series of random numbers fill
the screen and we begin to
imagine dots and we begin to
connect them and agree and
disagree with them, relate to
them and question them and
share them. the page glares.
we glare. everybody is
glaring and nobody is laughing
and then one of us starts
laughing, and another one of us
starts laughing, and we are all
laughing and the paper is
laughing and the inkdots are
laughing: the numbers are
laughing too.

thirty one.

fixed link mutable link
combinations of words,
probabilistic imitating meaning
while our ears and ears
meaning while it, a smallvoiced
blue place a library place in
a library where
different language and language
and things are there are
pictures of we don't things we
don't recognize or we don't
recognize we don't recognize or
have names even when names we
had we and shapes and colors
; we are colors; we
shuffling feet a feet shuffling
feet a librarian or is a
librarian down a librarian or an
old friend haven't seen
remember laughed back from
remember on we remember that
galaxies are asking questions of
they are stop for a minute the
, the momentnow the
momentnow the momentnow changing
and growing, shapes and to
situations of some kind make sense
make sense, that things can
be left just we happen a
don't make not so and the much
shoelaces tied or untied on or off
or off a trashbag
somewhere spoiled and fungi and
over control no. completely
if that's let it to the
pollen, a single green speck
its in strange the and with
crowd and completely with a
goal and air's call we call
society thing pushed defined
when we don't and saying

twenty nine.

fixed link mutable link
one with a scratchy word
which through bounces and.
just going with somehow and
laugh absurd a little think
about things like numbers and
things happening at the to
listen if listen (we suspect
nobody is they write things
were trying to so much start
thinking for about what be in
place of another are writing
begin with, just going one by
with a scratchy and with a
next straight the word which
bounces through our ear just
going with ear just going with
just. we can't laugh at how
absurd it little and then laugh
at absurd it laugh a laugh
even think about like and
days of like and days of the
week

twenty.

fixed link mutable link
the smell of damp sticks
from outside. a slowmoving
sound. we notice how
everything is so pink maybe we
remember why, but for now we
don't. “can it stay like this
for a while?” and, for once,
it does.

twenty one.

fixed link mutable link
we wonder what would
make us happy, what would
make this headache go away
which keeps distracting us
from everything going on the
scratching pens and observations,
a quote out of context we
leave the incense burning
when we go to sleep even
though we know it's a fire
hazard and it puts our lives in
danger and the lives of all the
other people living above and
below us, and all of the people
we know and the people who
care about what happens to us
even though we never asked
them to. we wonder why it
should matter that something
happens to anyone, we wonder why
we care. and everything is
so quiet.

twenty six.

fixed link mutable link
seem to fall. in the
wrong intended, but maybe
that could could could be,
but maybe that could be the
point the thoughts again
sneaking be the point that could
be., all these colors
while we and ideas permeating
while we smile outlines of all
into other themselves up
behind each making, shapes
themselves up pushing buttons and
dominoes which always in the
wrong or wrong direction. way
way we not in always the
wrong intended, sneaking.
spray

two.

fixed link mutable link
because the longer we
stare at the details, the less
we are sure they even
matter.

thirty.

fixed link mutable link
like begin with at the
moment the laugh, able to read
the moment. laugh over
actually nothing ever really. we
reject the we ask ourselves an
unexpected unable. don't. we don't
we don't. we begin to laugh
these questions are so. can't
we in the first seems like
comes to our ears like think of
a good question to with
the to read we laugh. we
laugh, and laugh be, anything
changed over these years or if
nothing ever and we ask
ourselves unexpected question
unexpected question: ?” and to
answer are ourselves we ask
ourselves an return: “who ?” and we
unable to then we to we laugh,,
laugh, and laugh begin to
begin and laugh so aimless
place when it seems when a
question comes to important a
important like at the how we are
able to read we next anything
. the that nothing really
we and

nineteen.

fixed link mutable link
the corner of the room
empty except for the little
grooves in the floorboard, we
smile. the moments going and
going in such a beautiful way
that we can't take our eyes
off it, noticing just how
inconsistent things are, how blurry
and arbitrary the
differences seem between things and
people and ideas, how musical a
painting can sound the ink never
seems to dry.

eleven.

fixed link mutable link
we keep asking
questions like “will this make me
happy?” when instead it might be
more interesting to ask what
it would sound like if the
leaves on every tree were poems
written on little sheets of
paper and everybody in the
world began to read them out
loud all at the same time and
then the wind began to blow
and the poems went flying in
the air all around and
everybody just watched it happen
in complete silence we
can't help but smile a little,
and then a lot. and someone
hugs the stranger to their
left and we all begin to
laugh. we ask ourselves
another question we can't hear
because of all the wind and
poems, and that's just fine we
realize we didn't want to know
the answers anyway when
there are so many confusing
and beautiful things all
around us anyway. we just keep
laughing and grabbing poems out
of the air, sometimes
deciding to read them and
othertimes using them as napkins.
the wind, the wind is
laughing too.

twenty four.

fixed link mutable link
. and sometimes things
are not are, and sometimes
it and sometimes it to
trying . not sometimes it from
one trying. and things , and
okay , happens other
sometimes they are we even and and
sometimes , and sometimes they not
okay and and sometimes
happens happens without even ,
and they are sometimes are
not things things, that we
go from one to the other
other without even trying.
sometimes sometimes and
sometimes they, and sometimes, ,
not. and sometimes they we
go without not and okay,
and things okay, sometimes
it one one and other
without even and sometimes
happens are , and sometimes it
other to sometimes things are
and it we happens we even
other without even even not
okay we go from without they
and and sometimes they to
the other sometimes things
are not okay sometimes they
are, and it to okay okay it
happens

twenty two.

fixed link mutable link
sound somehow the
voices people smile at we . but
and make laughing and
somehow the the windchimes sort
of harmony against the the
hear buzzing inside warmer
warmer . not but okay . the the
vibrations more closer we are of to
sun outside the grass kind
of sound of sound against
pause and just breathe just
second hand ticking while all
these angles while all by
again and again breathe for a a
while seasonal

four.

fixed link mutable link
it's hard to speak
sometimes. we are frustrated with
ourselves for our
inconsistencies once at peace and
allowing things to be just the way
they are and want to be,
always taking action and never
taking action,
leftandrighting with the leftandright
once again wishing things
were a different way or that
the coin had landed on the
other face; we can't figure
out who we are, and we aren't
quite sure if that question
leads anywhere hard to find
the energy to say anything,
too many responses waiting
behind each option which never
seem to go anywhere
positive, anywhere that doesn't
hurt anybody or dissipate
into the grass as if nothing
had happened in the first
place and we begin to wonder if
anything actually did or does
happen or if we had somehow just
thought it all up out of some kind
of desperation and
confusion aimed at nothing in
particular, cycles going back and
forth but never quite the same
way, always surprising
somehow and adding to the
confusion and lack of any sense of
place, the feeling that we are
nowhere and the feeling that we
are getting nowhere.

fifteen.

fixed link mutable link
we instincts but don't
remember where we left them
calling for different
different ways of we are of social
gestures these these across a who
don't know social gestures
amplifying because one these
social group of people they
funny when didn't so many
things going in every single
car once once, a single
behind every in the. was more
note in in the there there
there isn't isn't like just
another ceiling emails just
keep emails just arriving
and be none of them ever seem
branching, entire stories these
situations branching real people,
all these situations
branching out entire stories,
fanning, possibilities out
tree, impossible the one we
seems going going that seems
as as any one we saw first
and that at least don't.
calling for different ways of
dealing and smiling dealing and
know why gestures know why
they

sixteen.

fixed link mutable link
isn't it help but but
smile coming sun starts
coming back right on cue shades
shades cue sun how it we coming
remember and lines whose names we
can't remember lines
remember we many somehow
becoming and somehow breathe we
breathe breathe and and
becoming glowing and we breathe
breathe our breathe and .
laughing starts coming back
starts coming coming right on
cue shades on we colors
whose whose names we and so
many lines we remember lines
the stick of that that
somehow lungs we breathe. we we
breathe. we how we can't back
right on smile when on coming
remember lines and lines and so
lines. we remember that of
incense is still and breathe
breathe and breathe we help sun
we whose names the the
coming back smile when the sun
starts these colors back on cue
cue right on coming on cue
shades names shades shades of
cue sun back back right on
cue on shades of shades
colors. still glowing and
somehow lungs we breathe and we
we breathe breathe
breathe and we we and that the
stick of is we we breathe
breathe we breathe. we forget
breathe and we breathe breathe
we we forget ask questions
.. we to! isn't it funny
sun starts coming but when
sun starts coming back help
how we we can't help but
smile smile funny how we
laughing! it funny how smile when
sun starts cue on cue names
lines. and we that the stick is
still glowing becoming smoke
in still glowing and
somehow becoming our lungs . we
forget to ask

eight.

fixed link mutable link
we accidentally
imagine ourselves as having for
a head this strangely
shaped box or a bird feeder with
a triangular roof or
something similar and we are
sitting in the front passenger
seat of an old car and someone
we care a lot about asks,
who are you? and we
think for a minute, and then
another. we aren't able to answer
with anything except a held
hand, and we somehow find
ourselves caring more about them
just because they asked.
they can't answer either,
and the grip gets tighter
and they aren't making eye
contact but that's okay because
we aren't looking anyway
and we are both these
strange wooden boxes attached
to bodies, heads without
eyes which still say so much,
eyes without laughinglines
which always find new things
to smile about an itch
behind our ears, the way this
piece of paper falls on the
ground, the sound of an overhead
lamp switching on laughing
about nothing in particular
and everything in
particular, wanting to want
everything and wanting to want
nothing, to feel everything and
to feel nothing, or at
least something the grip
getting tighter and we remember
how okay it is, how
beautiful it is and how funny it is
that poetry and music might
be the same thing after
all, that hiding is okay
sometimes and being naked is okay
too, that sometimes things
lead to other things, and
sometimes they don't, and
sometimes things just happen and
they keep just happening and
they don't stop. they don't
stop and it seems like they
never will, so it starts
making sense to just accept
this and close our eyes and
smile a little but somehow
this feels impossible. we
get frustrated and start to
do things we don't want to
do, blaming other people
for things nobody had
control over in the first place
and jumping to conclusions
and making assumptions
about other people and their
intentions and what they want or
what they are afraid of. we
forget that they are us, that
their grip is getting tighter
and that nothing is okay for
them either. we remember
that their boxy head is
crying and we have been trying
not to notice. we remember
that we are all the same
person born into different
bodies, and that this is a
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing.

six.

fixed link mutable link
silence and quiet now. a
small voice humming and
laughing in the other room. a
crystal or some melting snow.
behinds toward while again
around where's or why's while
leftandright shrinking silently. a
wooden creak. a scratch. all
centers things happening all
around, things just happening
and just being the way they
are. and we realize that this
is a beautiful thing. that
this is a beautiful thing.

seven.

fixed link mutable link
tangling wires into
these bizarre shapes, rugs
with strange colors and
melodies waitingly, taking deep
breaths before the speech where
we finally speak our
minds: "won't everybody
please, please stop this
cruelty? can't we see how
unnecessary it is?" some glass
window creaking under winds,
some oil spilled in a parking
lot. how again the why's and
who's before and after or some
some behind throughingly, a
manual for writers of research
papers about electrical
engineering and game theory,
complex analysis and early
marxist painting; the
walls of this place have
shoulders that are
sagging, somewhere in these
pages an actual answer to a
question that matters. a new pair
of jeans, a holiday
decoration left up for months, a
lightbulb which doesn't fit even
though we could have sworn the
size was right at the store.
color combinations making us
feel sick and wonder why we
care about the dissonance,
why we should prefer one to
the other. we conclude that
we're all just bits of air
moving with the waves of some
song we can't hear: now
banging on the wooddrums, the
thoughts and the doubts, hopes or
imaginations throwing fists at the
organ keyboard, some body of
loud waters, some
electrical structure groaning in
rains particles trapped in
the breezings, the sine
waves, the eyeballs thrown
left and right or up and down
or is that a sign of
happiness, of
peacefulness? who's to tell what's
harmony and what's dissonance?
who's to tell the words of the
song when each moment's just
a few bits of data? hard to
see the picture from a
pixel, hard to find the poem
through a word a letter an inkdot
the arounds and behinds
lost somewhere in the mix,
the breath being exhaled
before we even noticed it was
inside our bodies, each note
rising just a little higher or
just a little more like dirty
wallpaper: we ask each other where
it happened. where the
music got faster. where the
blue became green, where the
light was switched on and the
newer waves began to
interfere with things and distort
the shapes, canceling out
or multiplying or
performing more complicated
operations until the noise is noise
and the signal is noise and
the noise is still noise yet
somehow wider, more sideways
and spinningly and
uppingly and backwardly, more
harsh and out of sync, now neon
colorlines and batteries, strange
gaps in the spiral not
patterns but something about
them which makes us feel the
walls are moving further away
and the room is becoming
smaller, that one moment is
another and the second hand is
somehow different this time
around. we cannot help but go to
sleep again, this time with a
strange smile and already
looking forward to coffee. this
time with socks and a thicker
blanket. this time with the
windows open: and in comes the
cooler air.

five.

fixed link mutable link
quietingly, the
softmurmurs not trying to say
anything in particular or
convince anyone of anything,
prefering to let things just exist
the way they are and stay the
same when they need to stay
the same and change when
they need to change, or not
even need to stay the same or
need to change but maybe
instead want to stay the same or
want to change, or rather: it
just happens. it just
happens, and it keeps just
happening. the softmurmers not
even speaking about what's
going on or what's not going on
but instead just
mentioning about whatever is on
their mind at that moment,
letting it out and letting it go,
the sound waves not
disappearing but echoing off a
thousand surfaces and every
blade of grass, split and
muffled and distorted and
echoed until they sound like
dead trees, the sun pushing
the waves around a little
through the screen door, gnats
in the air just sort of
moving around.

thirteen.

fixed link mutable link
we wait for a few minutes
and wonder if it would be
okay for us to ask now: "is
this beautiful?" we wonder
if nobody noticed and we
watch the air just sort of move
around through the leaves. we
take another breath with the
sunlight and feel warmer.
throughs and arounds
behindingly the now nowing while
again the time continues and
stops and continues again.
circles of ink we close our eyes.

eighteen.

fixed link mutable link
systems all around us
and our lives fracturing
breaking apart piece by piece as
we keep trying to glue
things back together with
words and theories and poems
and cathedrals
architectures in the mind and and later
in concrete, we begin to
feel jittery as we realize we
haven't stood up in hours, this
chair and its arms a little too
narrow, pressing against the
sides of our skulls, plurals
and singulars not having so
much significance to us now
when the lights are
flickering so subtly. we pray but
don't know who we are praying
to who we are praying for,
what we want, what we should
want. fading. fading.

twenty eight.

fixed link mutable link
and remains perfectly
paper well sticks to smudges
make us somehow misread a
smudges a or of something
otherwise , would be better , more
appropriate. it let we and just
listen to the wind the just
about anything, it or for it
for could or couldn't
prepare us it if listen these all
these people we've people
we've pointing about the
types of without leaving any
mark because roads and
collapse and fade eventually

twenty three.

fixed link mutable link
, how the sun is landing
we can somehow our a we
don't we know if are and that's
perfectly never have made or feel
human is blood is glowing, the
little bit and in an instant see
everything what is, and object just
these eyes absorbed by
transformed energy which pushes
bits of dust is and how. turn
out,. to another with some
rock after falling, the
screams and the smiles keeps
ticking and best circles around
on themselves while
voices room and can't around us
of paper whole room
somehow feel we don't think
things are repeating
themselves perfectly because made
us happy is our blood is
going keeps, and we are to

ten.

fixed link mutable link
we ask ourselves some
question we can't hear, muffled
because our heads are
underwater, this cold sensation
pressing on our foreheads while
we feel our socks becoming
heavy, cottonfibers grabbing
skin and dragging behind our
feet, cold passing between
our toes. maroon painted
walls and a thick sweater,
crinkling plastic bag full of
snacks. we notice it is becoming
later every moment, and that
as soon as we count one
number there is another in
front of that, always room for
another one or zero or eighty
seven or pencilcase
dirtyshoe, these power outlets
rusting over even though we
can't see where the water
could have come from fading in
the carpet telling which
way people walk most
without asking why they walk it
so often when it seems
there are so, so many other
ways to go and that this way
isn't even the easiest or most
efficient or beautiful or
surprising: they are taking the path
because it is the path they take,
and we can't help but
laughalittle at how beautiful that is
not to say that one is better
than another or that anyone
is wrong for going the way
they do or that we think we are
better than going that
particular way to the couch, but
that we know in the end we are
going to go that way too and
that's just fine. it's just as
good an option as any so we
don't see a reason why not it's
beautiful enough and it's
surprising enough and that itself
may be the most beautiful
and surprising thing of all
at the moment.

nine.

fixed link mutable link
we are breathing. and we
are still breathing. one
thought and another passing by
in the street while we ask
ourselves if this is going
anywhere if we should instead be
focusing on something else like
the way the smoke is
drifting away from the incense
stick, or the sound our eyelids
make when we blink. is there a
place for rushing anymore?
the softmurmurs again,
reminding us about our breath: and
a little blue bird lands
on the windowsill. it is
singing.

fourteen.

fixed link mutable link
a when moving as usual
working woodenbits a
counterpoint the conversation stays
the same seems to nobody
really about seems and to we or
with with the with questions
ideas how to see under a color
when we stuck inside it usual
with working as be working
those clunks and little
fingers and and woodenbits. and
a counterpoint.
conversation same seems to care or
with to questions and
questions again a color when under
a color see under stuck
inside are stuck all clock
seems to be clunks fingers and
little fingers and
counterpoint. and counterpoint. and
the.
,