i am dreaming
but someone is laying bricks
around my dream
wells
he is rising houses
drawing roads and people
unfolding some wind
above plane-trees
and above hills rounded

and bridges
to other dreams

Riley wants to build a robot.
With all the eagerness of
a five year old
who has been told
that she is brilliant, and beautiful, and kind,
she presents me with her shopping list:

METAL
CLEAN WHEELS
ROBOT FOOD

She tells me that the wheels need to be clean
so they don't mess up Mama's floor.
Of course, I say,
and kiss the top of
her brilliant, and beautiful, and kind head,
reflecting for a moment, with my eyes closed
and Riley chattering happily,
on why a child's hopefulness
always makes me
just a little sad.

It’s unclear when time stopped functioning like a linear candle,
but at one point during the night my words echoed
for hours
in a loop.
The conversations became gerbils running on exercise *****
while black holes transported me to vast distances
forward and back within the conversations.
Now I know what power the “if-there-is-a-god” “God”
enjoys.
Having enough time and space to examine a conversation from any point
in any space, volume or time.

As we continue talking,
I notice the conversation coming to the ******—
But abruptly it jumps to the end.
My friend looks to me for approval,
and all I can say is that I must retrace my steps
in this moment,
             For I arrived sooner mentally, but not spiritually.
What they don’t tell you in the Bible
is how hard it is for the omnipotent asexual being to
processes a conversation from end to beginning.

        Imagine starting out with all the facts, and then quickly giving them away,
yet you still had a vague idea that you held all the facts at one point
In the timeline of this conversation.


The awkwardness is so palpable,
I could cut it like a cake…
but only I’m aware the cake is poisoned.
When a slice is handed to me,
I think to myself, “Don’t eat that, it’s poison.”

It’s tough being for the audience to tolerate this.
You know I must eat for the process
and entertainment to continue.


My friend wants answers, and guidance. I’m supposed to be helping him in this time of need, or consoling him in some way.
But I can’t without all the facts
I have a vague idea I once possessed.

We do not know each other.
The fog is carving the ghostly
silhouettes of houses, people
and hopes.
And like a sound the hand is –
a semitone of the scream
of seagulls “Arriva … Arriva”
Nothing is coming.
Nothing has come.
I am trying to breathe –
in a time beyond.
In the gardens of the cascades
before the dawn and after the rain.
We do not know each other.
You’ve melted in the sun,
a sun in the fog
and you’ve never been here.
The paper remembers some passed
sounds come from the outer
world – Arriva.

In our eyes we are burning.