a running list
Article by Riley Burr Art by Jennifer Martinez
1. Ice cream
2. Leftovers
3. Oatmilk, but only after it’s been opened
4. Corsages
5. Cheese
6. The pomegranate you split with your best friend last winter
It strikes me, each time I open a pomegranate, how much the cutting board looks like a murder scene. What’s that one TikTok quote? “For you, I would,” or something along those lines. Meaning that when you love someone, it’s worth the mess. Mom used to joke about it, showing her red-stained fingers, crying Blood! Blood!
7. Those little sauce packets that come with takeout orders that you never eat and just sit in the fridge until someone throws them away
Next time you order takeout, they’ll reappear in the fridge.
Next time they reappear, someone will throw them out.
There’s a metaphor in here somewhere. If I wanted to be obnoxious I’d write it down. I just wonder if there’s certain things in life that I’ll never be able to get rid of.
8. The view of the sunset from The Preserve
How many body-balancing deep breaths did you take sitting on that hill? How many times did you leave crumbs on the grass for the mouse just there in the bushes? Do you miss your friends in other cities? This country is vast; the people you love are scattered throughout it.
This country is vast.
The people you love are scattered throughout it.
9. Books about plants
But not the plants themselves, they’ll freeze if you leave them in front of the open window overnight. Learned that lesson the hard way last winter.
10. The clogs you thrifted over the summer
Ely calls it shoe rot; the thrift gods giveth and the thrift gods taketh away. I still keep them in my closet, though, and I will until the day they completely disintegrate beneath my feet. I do this to every pair of shoes I own. I think part of me believes that someday I can fix them. This part of me holds onto broken and breaking things with two clenched fists.
11. Red
Booths in the second floor of the library
Sunburn on your legs the night he first kissed you
Wine we never finished (we liked the idea more than the taste)
Nail polish
Campfire embers
12. Local print journalism
Denver lost 440 reporters in ten years after the rise of the internet forced local newspapers to cut costs. “Think,” says my professor, “about how much information we’ve lost.”
Washington Post fires half its staff; Bezos’s income remains the same.
I send Dad my Catalyst articles. Here is what we have in common: a deep and stubborn love for dysfunctional and/or declining things. This includes local print journalism and each other.
13. Flowers
Or: every bouquet of flowers he’s ever given you.
Or: the idea of life, rebirth, unity, the cyclical nature of the universe, etc.
Or: the flowers Ophelia hands out right before she dies. Rosemary, pansies, fennel, columbines, rue, a daisy, and no violets. “Do you think she does it on purpose?” My director asks. “Do you think she knew what she was doing?”
14. The American Dream
Love for an ugly country
Love (which is straining) for an ugly country (which is growing uglier)
I don’t think optimism is naive.
There has to be a way out. There has to be a way to make this better.
15. Green
Matcha
Plants in the windowsill; frozen. Kept there well past any chance of saving.
Sweater
Stoplight
You give up on houseplants a week after they all die. In the process of dumping their frozen carcasses into the trash, you find a singular stubborn shoot still clinging to its singular stubborn life. In a few weeks it will grow a leaf, then maybe two.
16. Perfectly healed ear piercings
Soaking q-tips in saline solution every morning really makes you think about commitment. You still can’t help but sleep on your side.
It’s not too bad. They’ve still got a chance, don’t you think?
17. The last fragment of hope you’ve so desperately clung to for years and years
It’s changed colors and has a funny smell but you still might be able to use it. Deep in the back of the fridge, you still might be able to use it.