when you cannot wish on stars, wish on streetlamps

Through neglect, ignorance, or inability, the new intellectual Borgias cram hairballs down our throats and refuse us the convulsion that could make us well. They have forgotten, if they ever knew, the ancient knowledge that only by being truly sick can one regain health. Even beasts know when it is good and proper to throw up. Teach me how to be sick then, in the right time and place, so that I may again walk in the fields and with the wise and smiling dogs know enough to chew sweet grass.”
– Ray Bradbury

On a night when the fog looked so dense that all the forest was merely a scattering of charcoal smears on the canvas of Nothing, I walked tripping and falling. Landing on soft wet snow, I pressed my skull to the earth and gazed in wonder at the clear cold sky. The stars seduc-

Wait- come back! I was lost. It happens.

We hold our breath and hands, beneath the blankets to keep out dawn’s light. Time shakes its feathers around us, squawking and chortling in our ears. Carefully, carefully, I circumnavigate your body while all the world wakes up, alive and twitterpated, restless and eager. Secrets whisper to me from beneath your skin.

They have known you since before you were born. They have always been hiding, just beneath the surface of your flesh and blood, in the ticklish spot beneath your ribs.

Before you were born they hid themselves in your veins,
where you would not see.

I say, when you cannot wish on stars
wish on streetlamps.
Another story, another romance,
another dream sits waiting at the coffeeshop
on the corner,
tapping her toes on wet, tired tiles,
watching the puddles form faces
on the streets outside.

“We never sit ourselves out.
We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled.
The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.”