I feel this sadness spreading across the time capsule of my body. My cells remember this sadness and pull toward it like iron beads to a magnet hovering above them a little too high for them to fly into the air but not high enough to keep them from vibrating against each other. I don’t mean any sadness. I mean this sadness. I mean how this dying connects with all the dying I’ve experienced.

I see the honey locust against a darkening sky. I see the laccolith darkening before everything else I see. I see the edge of the pasture where Curley, Friday, and Jet live. I see a hummingbird zipping up and over the house.

I hear the dishwasher busying itself in the kitchen. I hear the bulb in my desk lamp buzzing. I hear the cars on Highway 17. No, not the cars: the tires. I hear my tinnitus, especially in my right ear.

I smell mildew from the dish towel I just wiped my hands on. I smell my berry-flavored Eos lip balm. I smell my hairspray even though I didn’t use it today. I smell cloves from my aromatherapy kit.

I taste the olives I just made myself eat. I taste salt because I’m part salt. I taste whatever taste arsenic-laden Toquerville water is. I taste the skin on the inside of my mouth.

Correction: I feel the skin on the inside of my mouth. I feel my wet hair tightening into curls against my face. I feel the balls of my feet pressed against the windowsill. I feel the raised lettering on my keyboard.

I’m forgetting how to spell words like waist (waste?) and buzzing (bussing?) and sarong (which I didn’t even use in this post) and, in a minute here, tranquilizer (tranquelizer?). I’m forgetting words entirely, like laccolith (la- something) and desk lamp (light on table surface) and aromatherapy (smell healing).

This sadness feels like being shot with a horse tranquilizer. At least, that’s how I imagine it feels. I’ve never been shot with a horse tranquilizer, but I’ve been sedated for surgery, which quickly turned into sugary, just as the doctor who performed my surgery, Ryan Cooley, quickly became Dr. Floovr and remains Dr. Floovr to this day.

Language is leaving me. Dyslexia and working memory impediments are taking control of me in ways that aren’t fun or creative or surprising. I want to tell you about the sky now, how it’s the perfect ombre, about the bats fluttering above my street, about the honey locust and how it’s so dark that it looks like it’s gone beyond black. It’s the darkest maroon you’ll ever see. Something like that. I want to tell you something like that.