I've said before that what matters is
never the size ofyour ink budget,
the fact that you can run thirty minutes
at a stretch on a featureless track or your
special attachment to decorative BIC lighters
but a kind of mute complexity
that turns suspended spirals
in the water of your soul

I want you to be at times a tempest
and at others a trade wind, staid and insistent.
I want you to lock eyes with stars through the ceiling.
I want to see a look in you that says they have returned it.
I want to see your eyes recede into a place
no reassurance can reach, eidetic and dense.

Send your mind to hell by mail
but come back when the post goes out
put your cheek at the root of my neck
and tell me that it's getting late,
and aren't you tired?

When everything feels muddled the next day, was it worth it to convince yourself that everything is better under streetlights when fire flies are dancing and the world is busy being busy.

Slowing down to listen to the world break and you know that for that instant everyone alive or not is aware ofYour actions alone, like you were holding the gun to their head.