Amen. Hello. Welcome to hell. this is going to be a very distracted one that I am really only doing out of a devotion to the bland orneriness of doing it. overstimulation: wine, pumpkin seeds, asmr so tired, so tired always tired. even when i sleep it’s only a half sleep or if i’m lucky a three quarter sleep or if i’m really lucky a seven eights sleep but i lost that wrench so usually i have to round down to five eighths and then it rounds the corners off the hex bolt and welp so much for that one. throw it out back in the rusty garden along with all the others and let the worms and woodpeckers live in there. feed them. walking on a sidewalk, vaguely east. the street lies flat on an alluvial plain. tiny drumlin to the north, a geological wart, humbly smokes its pipe of dried leaves and humus. the worm families recount their dirty stories and kick back from far away, as far away as a subliminal ache or memory, rain advances silently falling for miles each droplet alone, cold, undulating slowly surrounded each by its own tiny atmosphere of loss, regret, rebirth paler than blue they impel towards you out of a pale blanched sky riding the wind the first one strikes you like a single, offhand tear makes itself at home on your cheek then dies <click> tab tab remember we said this could be a space? i still like that idea i like it too and just like that, the old love refrain rumbling tapping scuffling sandbox shoelace diaries an old green sedan lumbers around the corner by the rundown church a slightly pinch-faced girl, mouth like a blowfish, leans out of a car window, catcalls you you say you’ll meet up with her and her friend here later maybe there’s a movie or music or a bar she rolls back up the car window by hand, turning and turning and turning the crank the car’s yellow headlights leer at you as they drive away, never to be seen nor heard from again lost to the glacier lost to the ridge lost to the microwaves soundlessly beating across the plain lost between the furrows of rich black soil, full of the sweat of railroadmen and rabbit hunters forgotten, along with all the rest: the flower shop, the diner, the bakery, the family restaurant, the pizza place, the drive in, the humble school, the faltering hospital, the speed trap, the grocery market with slick, waxed concrete floors that gently slope downhill grab a carton of milk go home dream on dream on dream on screams come out of the radio, turn it up idly, drive across the railroad tracks just before the one-eyed killer cleaves you into two mighty bloody pieces always this close to death that’s what we are because we’re worms dig dig dig, my friend, the rain is coming, we’ll all be writing on the sidewalk soon enough our ruddy ochre images burned there like etchings on an ancient cave wall we lived once. we dug. we ate. we pooped. we made something important. we died, died so that others may be nurtured and grow. <click?> take a picture, i don’t know how long it will last. Subvert something, it’s cheap. What else are you going to do? INVENT something? haha good luck. good fuck. good truck. food truck. let’s go have a three pack a tacos, and talk about this, shall we? So we went over to the crosswalk. I’m so hungry! I can barely think. Those two observations aren’t necessarily related. The light turns purple, and you take my arm. We stroll across to the other side of the street, the side where the sunlight is. Now we have to turn right, and you gently guide me by my elbow. I get a frisson of pleasure at being thus guided. It’s honestly all I’ve ever wanted, was to be this person, to be this person in relation to the person you’re being right now. Is that so wrong? My ex girlfriend said it was wrong, not in so many words. Most of the big ugly scary men in my life have seemed to exude an energy that says it’s wrong. Like it’s like it’s like it’s like some kind of *abdication.* Like, I don’t know, try to break it down: you’re born, right? You blink and look around and cry and take a shit and fiddle with your penis, ok, fine, so you’re a boy. First of all, did you choose that? So but then you get old enough to push a wheelbarrow, and it’s like, oh, I guess I better push this wheelbarrow. Which I’m like fine, I can do that, I actually kind of like doing that, I don’t have a problem with that, and if it helps, if it helps get the mound of rocks and dirt from here to over there, and other people seem to get something out of that, and appreciate it, then ok, sure, let’s do it! let’s DO it!! And it goes on like that for a while, but then BAM, you learn that there’s this thing called love. Are you ready for it? (haha) And there’s like this commitee or something, yes I’m being evasive, because I don’t know who they are—the supreme court? The Supremes? your teachers? your parents? tv movies books magazines? All these scapegoats are too facile, but let’s just leave that for now, the point is—you’re like, yes, love, sure, I like that, I could use some of that, I could offer some of that, just tell me what to do, but for whatever reason, because you were pushing the wheelbarrow, they tell you you have to be on THAT side of the street, and you have to be the one TAKING the arm, and you have to hold yourself like THIS, and you have to talk like THAT, and there’s suddenly a limit on how many syllables you can say at any given time in any given word, and you have to sit a certain way, and you can’t be WEAK, and you have a RESPONSIBILITY to the other kinds of people, you know, the ones that you aren’t and don’t have a right to be and why would you want to be anyway what the fuck is wrong with you? And you’re like oh. And you make the best of it. If you compain, you’re just being precious, narcissistic, lazy, evasive, and probably a communist. So obviously you don’t complain, or they won’t let you push the wheelbarrow anymore, and anybody who CAN push the wheelbarrow but DOESN’T is self-evidently some kind of disease node and should be excised immediately, i mean honestly you can’t even argue with the logic of that. And I’m not saying you’re miserable, you do have some love, you do have your moments, you do have your times when your eyes light up like a stoplight on the corner on the way to the ice cream shop, but.... Hey, are you all right? Haha, yeah, I’m fine. Just remembering some really weird shit. And the way you smile at me... The light is flashing pale cerulean so we hurry across the next crosswalk, and duck under the train bridge just as a train is coming. It heaves slowly thru this little slice of golden sunlit downtown, just creeping along, creaking, swaying, all low bass and antique power, and we watch the graffiti show for a little while, just loving the fact that people are so full of bright colors and swirls and swoops and shapes and that they leave their mark anonymously and that it tours around the country for zero dollars and zero sense and I lean into your shoulder a little bit and my god I don’t believe I will ever be able to explain to you how luxurious, how meltingly delectable, how full, and rich it is to be allowed to do that here, and now, right here some hundred paces from the taco truck with its festive string of perfectly clear firefly bulbs, singing quietly out into the gathering night. see you don’t fully get it, cuz you’re from here. you were born here, you grew up here. What if i told you someday where i grew up? Could you even fathom the minor differences, let alone the major arcana of a life lived in a different universe? haha, my little unicorn, you like to call me, and i get all buttery inside and want to kiss you. Yes, i told you once, the traffic lights are actually red, green, and amber there, and you were like no fucking way, that’s so fucking weird. we laughed about something and had an impromptu wrestling match and gooooood god it felt so good to lose, your weight on top of me, my eyes locked on yours, a half smile forming on each of our faces, you got one half and i got the other, and i let go and you pinned my wrists above my head against the mattress and i let out a little gasp and i wondered if you could ever possibly know how priceless, precious, perfect..... but you’re going to want to know why i’m blushing right now, as we walk up to the open window of the truck. shut up, i’m trying to read the menu. the kid behind the counter is on the phone but he hangs up when he sees us walk up. he’s tuned in and turned on, he’s wide awake, under the railroad bridge the city is his. what can i getcha? he asks, and it sounds like he means it. i am going to ABSOLUtELY ADORE handing over my ragged three and a half dollars to this young man, cilantro, beans, tortillas, the kinda cheese they only got at places like this, an aloe drink, again, perfection, i am overflowing, i am gratitude incarnate, carnitas, cerveza for you my love, the stars are out, the stars are in your eyes, it’s a goofy romance, it’s ridiculous, there’s music playing somewhere over there, we thank the boy, we tip well, we go on our way.... walking through shadow with you it’s these bright moments i remember i commemorate i celebrate i write them down in my tiny leatherbound book so i can show you when we meet again after the darkness in between after i’ve been banished back to my own old world and you to yours the mebrane between us solidifies again i don’t know if you ever existed, were you a dream? imagination? a memory? a single rain drop, glancing against my cheek?