forget the way the sun hangs in the south half of the sky and floods your grandmother’s kitchen with morning light. forget the delftblue tile backsplash, sporadically scattered with figures at play. ignore the turkey bacon you requested; ignore the cardinal-red cushions, embroidered in gold, padding the table’s bench seats. for this recipe, all you need to remember is the crunch of seared potato cooked in butter, salted and peppered to taste. be patient—achieving that type of crunch takes longer than you realized. as you peel the potatoes, forget how you used to sleep in until breakfast magically appeared on the table. forget nights spent mixing potions out of hotel shampoo and toothpaste, afternoons digging through the box of crayons to find the well-used shocking pink one. dice the potatoes and pay no mind to the clock. place the potato cubes in the pan—hear how they sizzle when melted butter and hot metal find their raw edges. meditate to the sound of simmering. cook until crispy.

like that video where the weather reporter is out in a hurricane and the wind brings that red metal octagon over to bodyslam her, so fast you can’t even see the fall, just the traffic indicator as it takes over the tv screen and clangs to the ground itself. that’s what i want—hurtling steel through a furious flurry of raindrops, controlled not by the whims of wind but the mind. yes, just once, i’d like to see my enemies bowled over as they would flatten me. (i have never been a beacon of forgiveness.) i want the streets to turn like animals at my beck and call, releasing their signs to the rapidly escalating northeast breeze. it would feel sweet. it would feel fitting. it would feel just to bend an element—like avatar, except that simile ends here for a kid that grew up under a rock and couldn’t tell you a single thing about avatar other than yip yip because damn, who doesn’t love appa? i digress. give me uncontrollable gales and squalls which whip at my ankles. give me flailing street signs in a hurried breeze. now i am powerful again.