I couldn't remember anything about particle physics or lucid dreams when I was the sky. I could only be, I could only swirl across the great paradox of everything and nothing. I could only watch the things that happened within me. It was like a beautiful symphony, one that needed me but operated without me, one that defined me without taking a single chisel to my being.

So what was it like to be the sun? You changed me daily. You let my core revolve around you and you helped me spin. You let me see new places, you clouded me and cleared me, you cut through me and reached in deep and redecorated my insides with barely a word. But when you cracked, when you went supernova on this little quiet galaxy, you burned right through me and exposed my insides to the elements. My outer glow was gone, my inner self was singed, and what I thought I was, I wasn't. It was like watching a plane crash. It was like I was a passenger who learned he was a pilot but couldn't stop the fall.

So what was it like to be the tiny crack that tore the engine off?

I know I'll never know what you were thinking, but I know I'll always wonder. I know I'll wake up and it will all have been a crazy dream, but I know I'll never shake this feeling that we're all not quite here. We're all shedding skins. We've all died in our sleep and we've all opened our eyes on the other side. We're all living on another new day, thousands of years from the last one. We'll never know the difference every time that the world ends. Here we are again. Where are we again?

Wherever you are today, whoever you are today, remember that we start again each morning and you're the one dreaming this up, so make it a good one, yeah? Do it for me, because I still remember the day you were the sun and the day I was the sky, and you owe me one, love, for letting you go. Whoever I am, whoever you are, let's get going before we all start all over again. Alright?

Alright.

Okay?

Okay.

[Aug. 9, 2011]

I'm in your sickly in-between,
Catching bullets in slow motion
For my metal meltdown correction collection
Infection, discretion, direction
And some other reason to re-build this
Little
Metronome
in my
Aching
Chest.

At which point, the author cut off
his invisible tongue
and returned to the silence
from whence he came.

[Oct. 4, 2011]

My hand was covered with drying blood. The broken pieces of the things you cared about cut me, and I was willing, and I was able, and I picked them up and put them away. A scratch meant nothing. The blood meant I was alive. My scribbles came straight from the heart.

I wanted nothing more than to sleep there at your door, but it's a dangerous place and a dangerous time and if you opened it up, I might have stood a chance. I didn't mean to interrupt you. I didn't mean to hurt you. But we all lose battles, don't we?

I used to be meek and quiet about these messes. Then, I felt like ****. But now, I'm the common denominator and wonder why I don't quite fit. What the **** is wrong with me? When I was with you, I was perfect, but all together, we were broken.

All apologies, polite signatures, and formal decoration.
I am here to make you happy I am here to lose my mind.
I am echoing echoing echoing and the feedback is deeper
than I ever wanted to think it could be.

I slump downwards and dream in reverse. When I wake up, I'm in my own bed, my own sheets, my own warm red blanket. You speak no metaphors. You have no tongue and no eyes and I refuse to sleep again only to defy you. "You're scary when you don't sleep," you say. And I bare my sharp-toothed grin.

And when this all comes down, a tiny crack opens and everything I fear in me is springs back to life and feasts on my fluttering heart, knowing it will not have another meal for a very long time. As I sit here, desperate to dissolve into billions of little particles and float away as if I was never here, I pick up the phone to call an old friend. Four rings. A pre-recorded voice. She asks me to leave a message.

But a robot takes her place. "I'm sorry. It is done. You may not."

Beep. Click. I'm alone once again.

[Apr. 3, 2011]

If these strings are the last thing I hear, I will know--

You were true and you were kind and I dreamed a million sunsets with you in the span of a second, the sound of a pin dropping, the droplet of time in which my eyes flashed and for one thousand years we all stood perfectly still. I am alive and it is some kind of tomorrow and I'll remember who you were for as long as I live. If you ever questioned that, I hope you never have to again. Good night, and good luck, and you made it, kid, you did it all exactly the way you always knew you would.

Your dreams are more than fodder for the stars.

[Apr. 7, 2011]

I lay my head on my pillow to catch my breath. Thirty minutes are all I need to find my focus and fight the forces facing me down. Am I right? I am right. The nap proves to be enough.

Am I wrong? I am wrong. Thirty minutes are all my brain needs to fracture my fugue and fiddle the futures, ******* me up. The nap proves to be rough. I lay my head on your pillow to catch your breath.

And it opens up a billion doorways I closed, a billion I chose (beside myself, so this fog could escape) to forget to facilitate as your friend far from home. When they open, it's osmosis; my cell goes insides-out. I open up a single doorway I chose, a doorway I close (behind myself, so the dog won't escape) to forget not to indicate to your friends this is home.

What have I undone? Therapy, denial, or life as we know it? Or was I shouting a suggestion from my sub-surface senses? I worked so hard to fix this, but there's a pinhole in my boat. I'll sink frame by frame in a matter of captured time. What have I done?

Back to your breath. Warm. Vibrant. Familiar and funded with the fearless feats of the night. It's too clear for me to lie about. It's too present for me to hide from. I am suddenly aware of the infinite undoings I could do in a second, and I suppose it's best not to know these things.

You'd have told me to drink about it (we can think about it later), but in my split-second dream it's later and we're thinking. We're making propositions. We can't not see it. We been digging the notion for years (we keep our feelings buried deep) and now we've hit a nerve. We've lost it and we love it. We've found it, and we fear.

This is the aftermath of our daily wars. We've pulled out and grown tired, and now we're ready to sleep. Together? It's more than I can make out and less than I can deny. I can't help but hear the cracks ripple through the perfect present I stumbled upon.

The first thing I want to do is call you, but what could I possibly say to make this make sense? We're still in separate military states. We're building our arsenals, and in ten years time we'll call respective peace and come back home. But it's a fraction of a fantasy from a time I tried not to trespass upon again, right? Our now is too perfect to remember that I thought of this then, right?

But here it is again.
And it seems too future-familiar to undo.

If I mention it, does it destroy itself? If I don't, will it never become? Do I want this or not? Now is too precious to neither fight nor shape nor occupy. Maybe this is just a function of knowing you so well and not enough. Maybe this is natural. Maybe I'm just ******* crazy and this is another insanity you'll have to put up with.

The second thing I want to do is call you and apologize for everything I haven't even done yet. I want to be sorry for moving to the city and learning its secrets, sorry for our nights out and increasingly improved interactions, sorry for the night when I let this slip. Will I fall? Will we fall? Can we catch each other before we hit the ground running?

It's a tiny little kernel, fresh back from the void, but it remains.

As vague a proclamation as I can muster is all I'd like to offer. A backwards sideways whisper that I had a strange dream and it changed everything by telling me that nothing had changed. So maybe inside that candle still glows, and the face I've carved melts before it burns out. Can that be okay? I shouldn't be afraid of scaring you; you've always loved this holiday. Let's keep pretending we're monsters.

And here I am again,
Just like I always was.
Just (as if) I always was.
One little dream won't melt my mind or mend my memories,
And one little wonder won't belt my bind or bend my boundaries.
We are us now, and then is an electron that we'll never catch.
No need to bond our present to our future,
Let's drop the valence and keep our bodies warm.

[Oct. 31, 2011]