but i am in good hands here, so how could i stray from the feeling? i wrote between a brick wall and metal bars and i will hear it in every eulogy of what if’s. but what if that’s what keeps me safe? happy? warm? what if i stopped imagining a place where im not, stop living in the space between me and what could be. what if the matter between you and i is thicker than the matter between me and outside?

i started doing this crazy thing where i imagine all the animals in little weddings. i see mice marry giraffes, and i laugh the whole ceremony. one time i even thought about a crocodile and bunny rabbit, that love seemed so docile. i can’t tell if it’s a neurological concern or an ailment of bitter soul, but i can’t picture the raven and the donkey making their way to everlasting euphoria together. and maybe that’s the thing i’ve been missing for so long.

i miss you. i see your face in every copy of Walden and episode of the twilight zone. if i sacrificed a million children from the turnstile line, them little buggers, then maybe, just maybe i could imagine you would find a way to make the raven and the donkey work with elegance and docility, just like the croc and bunny. you always could.

it’s purple and blue mostly, when they go.

this is who i am this i what i am. i am a memoir written in marks and tatters and tears, in my skin and my clothes and my heart and my mind. i am a living sculpture of everyone who’s crossed my way. my code is unbreakable because i cannot reverse engineer my mind close enough to bring out these parts of the people who have been here. i am marked. i am kind. i am hateful. i am angry. i am calm. i am never going to be able to forget everything that has been here, but i will never fold back on myself.

this is who i am.