brownian motion

today i look out of the window for the first time
in a year. the yard is lightly dusted with snow,
blades of grass just barely poking above
like dying cornstalks after the harvest
or the pertinacious stubble on my face

between all the late nights and the skipped
classes and the online assessments and
the technical interviews i think i lost a little
bit of what it means to be happy in this
rat-race hamster-wheel grind

today i think of your giant pyramid made of snow
and your photos of oranges in a spanish courtyard
and the five different application schematics of the LMP317 linear voltage regulator that you sent me between pictures of cats

i feel your chin against my shoulder
(i pretend, of course, that i hate it)
as you drag me to fix your titanium alloy simulation
as you slice numpy arrays and raisin bread
and send our little rice sack on legs to scout for treats under the carpet

there’s a conjecture that people return quickly
to the same level of happiness despite all the good
and all the bad that happens in life, and to
be honest my baseline is not that high

most of the time i forget i am studying at
what some argue is the best university in the world
most of the time i’m not satisfied with what i have
though i’ll make in a week what most
make in two months back home

but today i look out the window and for the first time
in a long while, it feels like enough

today i feel strangely loved