Unlike you, I still can’t write anything, for I still can’t

write a sentence that is too beautiful to be condemned 

as interminable, with the and ’s as serious diarists 

instead of multitasking teenagers floating in the sky and 

gesturing and ’s without ampersands. When your words dance 

on the white & in the black I tell my clock, modestly blinking 

with its 12:22 eyes, that I’m not sleepy and this isn’t night 

time, that they have (always) been lying and only these 

pages under my thumbs hold warm warmth, like my dog 

who has forgotten about me long ago. Please, tell me

it’s not random that you appeared in my life before 

you threw a bullet in my direction and I happened 

to catch it with my hands, still sweating in the blue, 

plastic, malodorous gloves that I stole from the 

chemistry classroom. As I continue—and by continue 

I mean rambling about nothing in particular but having some-

thing in mind to feel as if there is a slim chance that I am 

not dead, at least not yet—I wonder if there is a boat sinking in

the ocean, while elbowing the chocolate riffs like a three-year-

old asking for a little bit more ice cream, just a little bit, I promise, 

and humming a melody, no matter if it still remembers the lyrics.