Study notes on conceptual physics

by Stephanie Strick

Trigger warning: Discussions of emotion abuse.

all machines require an external energy source. that is why they cannot be perpetual, not really. my anger is a machine. anger is the lever that can lift fifty thousand times its force. my anger came second-hand. the lever creaks every time i turn it. the lever begs to stop, but i keep turning it. the rust rattles against my teeth, it speaks in tongues to the copper taste at the rough of my mouth. it wants to be spat out, wriggle free like a baby tooth. the tooth has roots. all trees have roots. they entomb the ground around the tree with a static friction. when i was little, my grandpa and i walked side-by-side to crunch dry leaves underfoot. it is a cherished memory. his electromagnetic smile is encoded on a million vhs tapes and his frown is encoded on his two children. i am his child too, though, he must know. when he turned the lever my tinder-box body cracked underfoot a million miles away, fifty years away. the sound never reached him and that doesn't mean it never happened. one day my parakeet flung all her bird seed to the floor. she doesn't know any better. she doesn't know and i vacuum the floor with two steady hands. i watch the floor become clean. i replace her bird seed. i sing to her. i don't yell that day. it is easy. it is hard. my turn, okay. my turn, okay. i don't yell. i don't yell. i don't yell. i don't yell.