about spending 4th of July trying not to think about the hearts at stake

I was trapped and strained toward the trapper. I tell you to work backward from a valley in the Carpathians through the age of apocalypse here in America, to California, to the birth of nanotechnology. When a single molecule splits itself into two and eats you and drinks water into its structures, you discover life is widely available. You consume cold babies to survive but find a dead body kept warm by the levitating boy at Old Moon Creek.

about late-night radio

One night I was up in the middle of the night listening to the radio. I imagined a little story where someone like me is up in the middle of the night listening to the radio, and the radio host starts talking about life, etc. The host turns to an expert who has all the answers. But the expert's voice is garbled static. The questions sound clear enough, but answer after answer is channeled through a bad connection. The host apparently hears every word. The sleepless listener turns the radio off and on, turns it at angles, pulls the antenna, is not understanding that the bad connection is the station.

about the sense of a lost dream

Your body stops metabolizing after exposure—fever, suffering, no help through difficult hours remaining you put a thousand ideas in the universe nobody could see you. Certain a borg is a sign your mind is gone to flicker yet next season approaches as memories get thicker of teens in the garage 5 feet into the rain. Keep rounding until past is as big as a house and I cannot see these curled dimensions.

 

Electrons annihilate the charge and burn down the distance between us two stars.

something about a peacock

The sun dominated on the last day of spring. See the peacock coming, her flag folded, her flag of war, which looked the same as her flag of love, so you never knew whether she was flying the one or the other. She marched all the way across the clearing, as she often did in the hours when shade was short. Her space—her destiny—was where the sun meets the earth, all mass and energy.

 

about a dream that sticks with me

One Sunday morning I was sleeping late and dreamed of lying in bed with X. Lying there, dressed in sleepwear, comfortable in each other's presence, talking. Not about anything in particular—just current events, passing thoughts, and so on. For a moment, my feeling wandered from intimacy to romance, but that feeling passed and I relaxed again. In real life, I would go out of my way to avoid her. And yet, what a treat was this Sunday morning spent together. I wondered later how I could dream something so in conflict with my better judgment. The reason is probably as simple as loneliness. There are few people further away from me than X, so her being so close meant that everyone else was that much closer.

I know a seagull

I know a seagull. He watches me uncaringly. Sometimes when he flies the sky warms from a restless midnight ink to a delicate warm peach speckled heaven blue. He is overhead now. Hello again, Seagull.

I see only his silhouette. He sees me old, yellow papery skin against starched, white hospital sheets, brain turning watery, back aching. He sees me standing atop the neighbor's woodpile, dressed in Superman pajamas, hands on hips and chest puffed out. Seagull and I, we are lifetime companions now.