Arthur Russell - "The Deer In The Forest, Pt. 1"

Wifi. Warm wind in winter air. Wise dogs, night houses. Empty streetcars lit from the inside (like, silver hush, "SHORT TURN"). Civil twilight. The memory of someone else's hands in your hair. This one spam email I keep getting every 72 hours, like clockwork, from something called the "universal semiconductor association" that just says "CHANGE PASSWORD," in all caps like that, nothing else. Semantic satiation. Wrong numbers. More bikes than you'd think. Most other people's text messages*. About half of the young professionals in peacoats you see on the subway. About a quarter of the used records in every pile of used records you pass by but don't flip through. Not as many cabs as you'd expect, but definitely synthesizers. Each unread email. Your awful, unfinished novel - all its corners and edges. A couple stray winter boyfriends lingering in the alleys, picking at their cigarettes and awaiting directions that won't come. Some beards, most haircuts, most plumbing, refrigerators. All the terrible, tangled old wire in the walls of your perfect apartment. About half of the girls on bikes that swerve to miss you. Every single raccoon.

*You know when you have thoughts that disappear before you get the chance to finish thinking them? That's what those are; just someone else's hey what are you doing tonight, someone else's hey can I come over swifting their way across town, moving through you like an impulse. Sometimes you're a universal semiconductor and sometimes you're a shortcut, but either way it's never up to you, not really.

[buy Calling Out of Context]