Viruses are intelligent. We say we're looking for "intelligent life," but we've already found it, and all we can do is engage with it as an essentially inanimate, impersonal enemy. Even if we anthropomorphize it, it's with a sense of self-importance, a self-absorbed narrative in which we are always the only real heros. Don't write to be read. Write to understand, to exercise, to practice, to meditate. When you need to be read, or to be understood, or to tell somebody or ask somebody something, you'll be able to. Even if it's a little surprising at first—you won't realize you're doing it at first; you won't realize why you are able to. You might go through a self-conscious phase, or a multitude of little self-conscious phases every time you sit down and try to "communicate." But it'll come out all right, because it has to. Necessity is everything. But your fundament of skill? That comes from all those hours you spent alone in the vast chalkboard silence, dusted only by the swirls and curlicues of all the other writers who knew how to respect the empty space, the blank page, the kind of poetry that doesn't need to be slammed or screamed in someone's face to be authentic. I'm all stove up from sitting in that goddamn LLV all day. And it feels good. Klinger's wood smoke smelled good. They have their propane tank right in front of the steps that lead up to the house. You have to tromp around or duck to get past it to deliver their packages. Why do people say phrases like "evolved beyond" or "advanced life form"? Isn't every snapshot of any one combination of pieces on the board just as "advanced" as any other? Why do we think we know what "intelligence" is? Isn't the word itself just a synonym for "us"? Isn't it kind of like how every human culture refers to itself with some kind of word that basically translates to "the people"? But yeah, this: "[In other words, life might not just be in the equations. It might *be* the equations.][1]" (2016) [1]: http://nautil.us/issue/42/fakes/is-physical-law-an-alien-intelligence