{m}34 Artist Spotlight: Jennifer Co
Jen is a senior at UC Berkeley studying chemical biology and creative writing. She spends most of her time listening to Raveena and watching the sky. Jen adores {m} and is this year's literary editor, where she is patiently awaiting your words <3
today again
it’s today again.
it seems like it’s been today for some time now
it seems
like yesterday is getting blurrier and achier and returning sooner to the air
tomorrow is just as unimaginable as the last and today
i suppose today is nothing i could have braced for either.
i’m thinking how maybe
maybe there’s nothing i could do to prepare for this, another today falling down from the sky
i’m thinking how maybe, though,
there is no other way to live.
you ask me
“what does waking up feel like these days?”
this morning i woke up earlier than i was supposed to
i could tell by the way i had caught the sun still yawning through the blinds
and i felt bad at having cheated fate and so
i pretended to be asleep until i wasn’t pretending anymore and in this way
i began my today as todays often arrive
unannounced and unsure
curling up once more to ask the night to take me back
a friend once told me on one of my achiest days, at the bottom of my blankets puddling
that it was time to live
and i thought how thin the line between encouragement and the imperative
i am in the middle of a sick punchline on how
the only thing between dead and alive
is the letter r as in are as in to be
as in the act of being and therefore living is only a management of dread
to my friend, a dear one, pulling me up from the mornings depths
i want to believe you
i want to believe the sun is really there for me when i rise
i want to believe i’ve joined the world at the time i was meant
but i am here,
unannounced and unsure and maybe
unwilling to pretend otherwise
it’s today again.
and what to do about that.