I want to exist in a way that floods my capillaries with
the silver sparkling sea foam that erupts out of the sky-colored lake
and fizzles out like I do,
like I will.

take me with you,
seagulls and woman in bohemian jewelry
and billowing brown—

I want to exist in a way that I will never.

until my palms can absorb crocuses,
crumble into sand and soil for them to grow networks of roots
in my bloodstream, I will cry by the water
and every time

I see men with white beards and squinted blue eyes riding bicycles,
years swirling behind them as they pass because
they already know how to live,
how to accumulate life distilled from tumult.

it is too much for my drying throat to hear the orchestra
without being able to drink its dripping scarlet passion,
to nourish myself with it,

but I could not live without the smell of music.

I don’t know what I came to do here,
so take me with you,
ocean and seagulls and bohemian woman and old men on bicycles with secrets, and
take me with you, violins, in a way that you cannot,
nor that I can even describe to you.