Sometimes it’s the small things that startle me. I consume myself with political correctness at the strangest of times, like when I watched Coco Before Chanel at the cinema and thought about biopics and how odd it is, that our onscreen counterfeits aren’t really in love or in strife or in need. Like millions of little brains currently being trained in the way of love by illusions, forever measuring the worth of their connections by strategically filtered sunlight, gently tangled strands of hair, edited rehearsals. Clever sleight of hand.

Outside, the wind is gnawing holes through our skin and a girl is kissing another on the cheek at a crosswalk, fingers intertwined to keep out the cold. And suddenly it becomes so clear -- real or not, it’s all the same. We’re all strangers waiting for the same thing: for the lights to change, for our lives to unfold, for things to come towards us, to come together. We're all tomorrows and stormy seas and the eternal repeat. Slow and sanguine and serene.

Something in me is changing again; every night I dream of rain falling in color-coordinated lines, diverging from its usual achromatic scheme to bathe the trees in shocking magentas and marigold hues. I wish I were a synesthete; that the beauty of everything I see and listen to here could permeate my synapses of feeling. That Kandinsky could constitute the entirety of my heart.