These are the moments, Carl,
when we are not bent up over
moldy textbooks, trapped inside
stale florescent rooms, but rather
here, alive as we ought to be,
racing from Sterling to Emerson to the
bus loop, breathing in the
fat splatters of rain that drop like
bullets from the sky and strike us
deep within the most fearsome of places,
the one which cries out: "Stop! –
you were built for a sea of grass, and
cool mountain air, and the small
grey chipmunks that scurry between the
crevices of the Rockies – for song,
dance, love, laughter, the
beauty of life itself."

I never planned any of this, Carl –
I didn't mean to fall in love with her.
She drew me into her life, and now I am
open; the world is bigger than it was before.

Tonight, the air outside my window is
quiet, and I feel oddly detached from my
body as I write to you about
songs, chipmunks, and
bullets falling from the sky.
I hope you are safe;
I hope you are well.