we accidentally imagine

by andrew yoon

seed 8379490

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

twenty four.

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

twenty five.

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

ten.

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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.

thirty.

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“who: unable cry..
first place when it place
seems or second so, so why we
can't think of a good of a begin
with can't think question to
why we why like why we or how
we we laugh what be what
might be next, if next, if
anything actually

twenty seven.

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close feel feel
floating the foreheads somehow
the might be warm enough
outside to this breathe our
hands ask ourselves caused
scrape paint we the someone
purpose of we own somehow. we are
floating outside our are incense
is enough the the feel this
small dents in they what
caused each came what where
where the floorboard small
the floorboard and ask ask
and scrape along and
scratch,, if someone of happen
on their own feel, that
incense be enough might. we our
hands now we notice small
dents floorboard and ask
ourselves and walls of paint and
walls of knot in the desk
someone happened happened ,
just sort of happen on their
own eyes. we close our. we
close like are moment and our
floating the be foreheads might
be breathe feel we breathe
and and feel notice now in
this we breathe and feel this
dents now we notice dents in in
floorboard and where and ask dents
from each scrape along
wooden walls of paint panels of
paint on the face of scratch we
care

twenty three.

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the us landing room is
skin for a moment we at all.
things but somehow we care
because human arm and our keeps
going keep and in an
everything is, object the moves
around absorbed into some kind
of is so climb trees of
quickly and how cars their to
joke clinging to one rock
glue another the falling
into the same bucket, the,
the timer we around on hear
muffled but notice the changing
every, how on paper and

zero.

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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.

one.

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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.

twenty.

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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 nine.

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one begin with just to
across lines , intention to
just one by one, just to begin
with, just going of just to ,
just to begin with , lines one
by one with bounces
through our ear and still just.
we that things going and we
can't but smile a little
absurd it is that we ever even,
what two happening (we

twenty two.

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buzzing buzzing
buzzing and making or work and
and closer the sun kind of
against the grass. just for a
pause just breathe for a while
. just breathe where
again while all a allergies
sound of people laughing and
somehow the somehow the voices
make laughing and somehow
sound of people laughing
laughing laughing laughing all
these acoustic vibrations
buzzing inside all

thirteen.

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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.

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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.

thirty one.

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our ears and toes and
make up for prefer to think of
it that again illusion
smallvoiced reminder that reminder
library where book language and
there we don't recognize or
thought we thought we had a are
colors feet is a librarian or
long remember even though
years ago we had until the came
back sound is from is from an
cell phone left playing
music, or the ventilation
fans turning remember that
the galaxies remember,
minute , growing, shapes never
leading in situations things
might

seventeen.

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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.

eight.

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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.

twenty six.

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buttons geometries and
relationships pushing in the wrong
wrong direction. not the
wrong to and and fall we but
maybe going going the wrong we
we expected expected or
intended, but maybe that could be
. ideas ideas into the
thoughts again. ideas and these a
smile. we watch with a
permeating paints all these a of
just happens outlines of
squares happens happens. it all
just things, making
themselves up behind each and
dominoes to fall in in the going
going the wrong direction,
way maybe that could be the
point that could be, but
expected or intended, but maybe
going or intended direction.
but but we that sneaking the
point.. ideas the thoughts
spray paints and we watch it
watch with a smile. it all just
of other things, shapes
sort of making themselves up
behind and seem to fall in.,
goals sneaking into the
thoughts and interactions and
thoughts could be be again again.
ideas and the thoughts and
interactions. spray. ideas into.
ideas all these colors and
concrete.. spray paints and
concrete permeating while while
it all outlines of other
themselves up behind each other
buttons and dominoes fall we,
but maybe that point. could
be the expected or
intended. goals sneaking into
the and concrete, all a
squares making the geometries
behind other of all just
happens it all just happens
happens it all just things,
shapes sort of geometries and
fall in expected or intended
, but maybe that intended
.., all these a smile. it
ideas with a outlines with a
smile. trangles into other
themselves other other the sort of
and making and trangles
into sort of making things,
shapes sort of squares and
trangles into other things,
themselves trangles into other
things making themselves up
behind each other dominoes and
and relationships the
geometries geometries buttons
wrong direction. not going
the intended, goals
sneaking sneaking the point
point maybe expected going
expected could be be the. ideas
and paints and concrete.
spray paints all all all these
permeating a smile and

four.

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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.

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behind every note note
in sky seeming like just
emails keep arriving just
people ever these situations
seem them ever keep keep
arriving and and keep them ever
seem to be and arriving and
keep ever seem situations
out into entire stories,
possibilities possibilities fanning
out tree entire stories
options weigh we saw saw first
and and that first as good at
least we looking for any good
as any for now we our
instincts but we these different
circumstances calling smiling and us
social gestures because one of
us one don't know why they
they thought the hear a
different life story a different
struggle a maybe more time time
the another another
ceiling. emails just keep
arriving sky seeming like

twenty eight.

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two and word or note or
two something wouldn't
have different technique of
for, and let it go eyes and
just airplanes our legs . we
wonder sun warming we wonder
what come just about
anything, we wonder could
prepare us for anyway we listen
sounds of never laughter
conversation, as to each other how
they explain to about
different types of all and forth
without any sort of permanent
even and dams and enormous
statues even roads and
eventually do figure out where the
patterns in a cloud something
really be maybe the or or urge
way these grid someone we by
someone now someone comes
walking, but say anything . or us
looking away that sometimes we
ourselves and they and walk out of
sight at it's eight it isn't it
now that behind is behind us
that our in front we notice
how shapes . we the smear the
with our perfectly hoping
perfectly legible . we that help us
something we wouldn't have
otherwise, but maybe a have
different technique or execution
would maybe a different a be
better, more appropriate. .
and just listen wind and
warming our legs . come from
could prepare us for anything
could we listen it would
matter to the sounds of all
these to of all these never met
all these people we've
never met , pointing the place
. so many about the place
many different types little
and forth any mark and were
in a leaves patterns a
cloud something could really
urge to felt some need or urge
to way urge we branches and
now someone we by our by
someone comes walking by our
sitting look sitting know comes
walking, but we don't so say
anything. us anything that
sometimes

nineteen.

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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.

twelve.

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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.

two.

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

six.

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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.

eleven.

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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.

nine.

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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.

seven.

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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.

three.

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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

five.

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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.

fourteen.

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agains the wayingsong a
we or to while behind the
eyelids, and underthere, a
beforemaroon, the eyes again with
questions and ideas how to see
under a color when we are stuck
inside it these things all
moving so slowly but the clock
seems to be working as usual
with those clunks and little
fingers and woodenbits we
suggest a counterpoint. and the
conversation stays the same and
nobody really seems to care
about the wind.

twenty one.

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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.

sixteen.

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to it laughing can't
help but but these colors
shades names we shades can't
remember lines and lines and
names remember names we lines
these lines and lines and so
many lines lines of incense
glowing and somehow somehow
somehow in our our our we and we
breathe and breathe . we we
breathe and to ask breathe and
forget ask when on cue we can't
names we can't remember many
lines of incense is in our our
we and in lungs lungs lungs
breathe
,