Grace

Shall we write a bit from the stream of consciousness? The stream of sub-consciousness? I tilt through a drug-induced fog, filled with the nausea of too many contradictions. Spinning with the knowledge of both paradox and purity, strung up with so much to say and no effective way in which to say it. I sing weakly of smiles aimed at backs of heads, I laugh loudly and it means, "I love you." I dream of old loves and of new and I worry not when I wake which is which. I plan to elope and I imagine the view from atop an elephant and I am consumed by the absence of pain and the evanescence of mystery. I stare at pixels til they picture me flying; I comfort the elderly as they mourn the futility of comfort. Fingers run the curves of bodies and the curves of sidewalks, the bends in backs and roads, the heaving of breath and of traffic. Intimacy is stop and go, tornados swirl fast and slow, you mustn't assume that she won't go. Birds fly in patterns because the sky's demand it. I would draw for you what I see, but then you could see it too, and it is mine. Don't you see? Ah. The sea.

It is so late. Too late. The world is massive and it suffocates--there is more space than we know how to fill, and we've none of it left.

I wish I had a giant Lite-Brite of the universe, and I would prick each memory that makes me smile, and they would alight the sorrow-darkened skies, and the contrast between the two would create shapes you'd decipher as stars and worlds and galaxies and rockets and ships and monkeys and plums and we'd pick the ripe ones and press their wine, we'd take rockets to the worlds and ships to the stars, and we'd say, aren't we just the happiest monkeys.

And we would be. We'd be the happiest. Some will disagree, and we won't blame them. We are too busy whistling, too busy squeezing hands and lemonade, too busy tying headscarves and shoelaces, too busy smiling at backs of heads, at the stars, at each other.