Young professionals sitting at an empty bar on a dead Tuesday night 

Taylor-Swift blonde: “This one time, I was flying home to Pittsburgh, from the UAE, and I came home for my friend’s party, and then I went home, took a nap, and then went to New York the next morning, at, like, 5 a.m. I was home for, like, eleven hours.”

Bro: “Yeah, I see what you’re saying.”

Taylor-Swift blonde: “So, like, what I’m saying is, are you going to make it happen? Are you going to do it? Or are you going to Talk about ‘what you’re gonna do’?”

“Like, my friend Shannon–she has so many things she wants to do…”

“Well, I guess, like, I have friends who, like, have things they wanna do…”

III. (Prologue)

When I was little, I learned how to fly. It was easier than you would think.

I was walking home from school one day, and it started to rain.

It was really pouring. Cats and dogs.

The storm started to really pick up. I had trouble even walking.

And then, the wind.

My God, the wind…

The wind caught my jacket, and lifted me up. Right off my feet.

I forgot about the rain.

I forgot about everything.

The ground was beneath me, and I couldn’t steady myself—couldn’t figure out which way was up. I was flying through the air, and all I could think about was the last time the wind was this strong. Had I ever been lifted up like this before? By the wind? I felt like I was falling upward.

I moved my arms rapidly, seemingly without effect. My feet were swinging in every direction. Rain was stinging my face, but it felt like it was coming from everywhere. Then I was face-down, and I twisted and turned my body until I saw the sidewalk under me, and I panicked. I flattened out, but in the air. I closed my eyes and winced, thinking about how hard I would hit the ground. When I opened my eyes a second later, the sidewalk was far beneath me. I was somehow moving away from it.

I was moving up. Into the sky.

I was flying.

After that…

Nothing was ever the same again.

II. Traveler

“I got an idea for a story about stories,” rasped the shape at the end of the bar.

Nobody let him in, and the dark around him was thicker than what I could figure.

He told me he had been watching me for a long time.

All I saw were his teeth as he drank from a mug that never emptied.

He said, “We’re going to see some strange things.”

I. Beginning

For years, each of us built, but none of us ever saw how what we made

all came from the same material, or how what we forged wove together to

form parts of an old story–one that we could only tell together.

We circled each other in The Vast.

We read a book about Vietnam, but the cries that came back were “We don’t understand,” and for the first time, I believed them.

The trick is to see the opportunities 

buried beneath the relentless onslaughts

17.2 mpg currently

100 miles remain

62 degrees

November 18th

Last year, 1/3″ of snow

A high of 21, low of 14

And everything in between completely different, and ever-changing.

Lots of uproar via the news and all major media outlets, encouraging Viewers to doubt their safety and question everything While Staying Tuned.

The nagging question, and that sinking feeling: Why can’t we just work together if/when we’re asking the same questions? 

You don’t have to be into my scene, man. I dig your art just the same. 

There is a lantern in the shape of the moon and clever poses in pictures

In which the moon is held between two hands, 

Suggesting we can harness the light and the tide.

We know that both of those are ridiculous, but the Light

Is so appealing and the effect is so calming, we ask

What else can we do?

Sunset, 5:18 pm

I smell pine and the rapid decline of autumn, sunlight flickering through branches and strobing my mirrors as

Orange cones for clouds slant into angled spikes across a purple and blue sky 

Framed by oxblood and tangerine leaves, an occasional tree insistent with sun-yellow fingers rupturing 

An undulating backroad, easy to coast without acceleration, craning to see parallel streams quietly nod along.

Deep, belly breaths at stop signs, and time slows just enough to augment sounds greater than their usual speaking voice

As I emerge from winding forest and roll back by squeezing a right hand, the smooth clink of left-foot lift readying

For an acceleration that is always a surprise, but more an affirmation that point A and point B

Need each other, the same way we do. The streams turn away from noisy concrete and asphalt, and I reluctantly move away from sunlight and leaves

To lean into corners as night begins to fall