in the same room, I loop Star Trek and you loop Grey’s Anatomy; this is parallel play

there’s a bomb in a man’s chest cavity

and I might just put my hand in there.

before you wake I only answer

to Meredith & Christina & George & Izzie.

in the low-slung jeans pre-smartphone era

they have no idea what’s coming.

there’s no optimism like the start

of an episode. sure we’re dark and twisty

but this rewatch I’ve stopped googling

the ultra-rare illness of the week.

I guess I’m learning how to live

and grieve with my whitecoats. 

a quick array of stings

then all the answers. a neat mystery

while you hit reset in the pre-dawn,

sip coffee, up long before I even imagine.

then an episode for every a.m. of the year

but really you’re in it for old friends

on rounds of interchangeable illness

solving for 𝑥 so soothingly. an infusion of pure

routine, no side effects in the blue armchair

of your daybreak bubble where every day

is a beautiful day to save lives. if pulses glitch,

you can always skip to the final frame.

if you miss a frame, it’s imdb’s fault.

mornings are mine so the blue night

is yours to contemplate

finally bursting the Yeager bubble

and buying that signed trading card.

you stay up late into the future

free of life admin and minor choices. tomorrow

I’ll replicate your tea. dimakusi assam. hot. 

I wouldn’t go so far as to call myself a Friend

of Desoto but I know things I should never have known

about Captain Janeway & Data & Picard & Seven of Nine.

I assimilate the babble. I’m not a doctor yet—

but I know survival is insufficient.

I want a frictionless future where routine

makes play for an array of anomalies:

wormholes, timeslips, infinite variants 

on the humanoid forehead. regimen

and chaos in balance. at night I hallucinate

a future unfettered by decision fatigue.

trivia over administrivia. and frankly?

I’d make a great bridge officer: best in a crisis

and are there even circadian rhythms in space?

there’s hot tea waiting in that nebula

and I might just go to sleep in there.