The Year of the Fire Horse

Regarding the shirt

The new year calendar started that morning.
I turned the page like it mattered.
It didn’t.

The room was quiet in the way a room gets when you’re about to make something you’ll later pretend was inevitable.
I sat at the desk early.
No ceremony. No warm-up.
Just a blank file and the faint pressure of a deadline that wasn’t real.

Outside, the light moved across surfaces, asking nothing.

I opened the reference.
Fire was present only as force.
The horse never appeared.
That was the point.

I set rules the way you set blinds—enough to cut the glare.
No decorative astrology.
No softened edges.
Nothing designed to reassure anyone, including me.

Fire stayed off the page.
When it tried to show itself, I pushed it back into pressure.
The horse was worse.
Too easy to draw. Too eager to explain itself.
So it didn’t get drawn.

What remained was a mark that knew when to stop.
It held tension without spectacle.
It responded to force rather than depicting it.
That was enough.
Anything more would have turned it into decoration.

The shirt was already there.
Folded over the back of a chair.
A Bella + Canvas. Oversized.
Not dramatically—just enough to refuse precision.

The fabric was soft from a wash meant to imitate time.
It didn’t quite succeed.
Time still does a better job.

I picked it up.
It had weight, but no insistence.
It wasn’t asking to be styled.
It wasn’t trying to flatter anything.
It understood space.
Most things don’t.
That alone made it useful.

I placed the mark without adjusting the light.
No test run.
No second guessing.
The shirt didn’t resist.
It didn’t improve either.
That was fine.

The calendar was still open on the desk.
A new year, printed too cleanly to be trusted.
It suggested urgency.
I ignored it.

The mark didn’t belong to a date.
It didn’t announce a year.
It would still be there after the page was turned again.
Most things worth keeping are.

I left the shirt where it was.
The room didn’t change.
The light kept moving.

Outside, the day went on without registering what had happened inside.
That seemed correct.

Later, someone would ask what it was meant to be.
I wouldn’t answer directly.
Not out of secrecy.
Out of accuracy.

Some forms register before they are named.
This was one of them.

The calendar stayed open.
The work moved on.
So did the year.

Fire Horse — Vintage Washed Oversized Art T-Shirt

Oversized Bella + Canvas Art Graphic Tee

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