You said that the world can’t fit between
the filmy pages of a photo album, and thus
it it pointless to capture it.
I sat by the map and traced what could not be chased.
July rang in my mind like the thud of paper onto the floor of a
garbage can -
a dull resonation to symbolize incapability.

and there's a big hotel with a revolving door, a marble-floored lobby and a gaudy chandelier. the clocks on the wall near check-in suggest that it is 6:21 in london. the elevator skips floor 13 in favor of serving the superstitious. he pushes the up button with his foot and places his hands in his pockets to wait and prevent any thumb-twiddling. i hear the smacking of gum and the tapping of feet from behind. urgency both quickens and hinders progress, he whispers. the doors slide open and london is five minutes into the future.

A chair is overturned by the bookcase
and an old Pepsi bottle lies by the side table.
The world is not dilapidated like this, and if you have
seen the world, you know that its boundaries
stretch only between consciousness and rational thought.

now he unpacks his bags, he rummages through the compartments of his luggage to find his yankees hat. i turn on the tv to find 27 channels of sitcoms and trash-talking straight-talkers. there may have been a bible in here at one point, but for now it's mysteriously disappeared like the being whose story it chronicles.

I still have the note you wrote me
from six thousand forevers away -
the one that was scrawled lazily onto a cheap napkin
from a nameless diner south of the fort.
The ink has blurred and the edges have torn
but it remains whole overall,
as if determined to be the one testament
to when you truly lived.

folks around here aren't too friendly, but then again they're not too friendly anywhere else either. a man yells "whore" into the streets after a woman. a boy falls off his skateboard and onto the asphalt with a smack and is nearly run over by a beat-down toyota. still we walk. we walk in sync to the beat of a reggae song blaring from a monster truck a few streets away. we walk without aim and without intent. we walk for the sake of walking and giving the world reason to turn.

You know
if every person is somebody else's world
then the earth is a galaxy
and the universe is an infinite collection
of nights spent hugging pillows
and whispering everything that can be
expressed through words.

i think about telling him that i dream about writing a love letter that goes on forever. he realizes that i want to speak but do not know how he will respond. so instead we stand by the bus stop and imagine the words that the other longs to say. there is no beginning and there is no end; there is only humanity and the boundaries it chooses to set.

You are the gate from which everything departs
and you are the pilot who changes more than he thinks.
You are some sort of magician who creates no matter
but rather illusions of matter
visible only to those who look with the intent to
truly see.