Jodi Bosin

a squirrel on the porch is eating a chip

holding it with both hands

 

the ad before the news says “make the world your

workplace” and why the hell would i want to do that

 

remember the dress, i think about it often

i never saw white and gold, only blue and black

 

reality, they said, does not exist as something separate

from the act of observation1 

 

we know perception is subjective but still

will argue ours til death

 

we need to feel that something could make sense

 

schrödinger’s cat was meant to disprove

the very idea it represents

 

concepts moved forcibly out of context

 

so much that we can’t and will not understand

how do you know if your life is examined

 

love is a mystery like sufjan said

but so too is its end

 

when a leaf falls off a plant

i have a tiny little funeral in my head

 

an electron is not in any fixed place until it is measured
it is only in that instant that it appears
1

 

i walk past someone with a t-shirt that says “the 1940s” white on black, and that’s it, nothing on the back

 

i worry about our mailman

especially in this heat, he walks so slowly

 

green numbers rain from the sky

 

things that live on like

that “S” that you draw with six lines

 

on the flip side of mosquitoes, we have
fireflies

 

before you are observed

you cannot even be conceived of

 

have you seen the images from
hubble2 those pics are pretty amazing

 

objects are closer than they appear

 

if you fall in the forest

i will listen

 

1 When We Cease to Understand the World, Benjamín Labatut
2 https://esahubble.org/images/archive/top100/

About the Author

Jess Roses (she/they) is a disabled, neurodivergent, emerging writer. Her focus is the transformation of relationships and experiences with pain and the taboo. She explores how these communal experiences form and relate to societal and personal narratives within and without the psyche. She has been published in Bloom Magazine, Coffin Bell Journal, Raven Review, Grub Street Literary Magazine, and more.

Instagram: @jessroseswriting