The Astronaut’s Wife is a film with Johnny Depp and Charlize Theron. Theron plays the titular role. I have never seen the movie, but I have seen the trailer, and I believe it’s about Depp’s character, an astronaut, who either becomes possessed or impersonated by an alien during a routine mission. As the movie proceeds, Theron, who portrays the astronaut’s wife from the title, begins to suspect there’s something wrong with her husband since he’s not acting like himself.
Matthew William Graham will be forty on the Sunday of our interview. During conversation, his tone vacillates between sustained notes of optimism and a crushing hopelessness. Like that which is present in most people of substance, there is an experience-provoked duality at play. And darkness has been animated for Matthew. When he closes his eyes the night becomes a hope-sucking vacuity,
Everyone is so sad, actually. I think, maybe, we should go outside more. In Los Angeles, when I go outside, my happy girlfriend gets sexually harassed. It’s always this one homeless guy. A homeless guy near the park, always throwing cans into the lake. A bearded guy, tan lines that don’t make any sense. Seems to be in his 40s. It’s okay because he’s homeless, but we just wanted to go outside.
cigarette through fingers undefined
calloused palms
enfolded completely
letting always from my weakness
& in this way,
wasted.
it lay there now, concentrated
the kernel in itself,
a false resurgence.
set face to face under hemispherical
ceilings,
swift passes in the air
out of terror for its
hallowed combustion
&