Everyone is envious of those more
alive than them and when we are not
aware of this we are directed by spite.
I once felt a long absence of the magic
and the summer after the sense passed,
I visited the city where I had been
young, walking street corners where I had
cried out of an absorption with an idea
of myself and with a desire to be
witnessed, to be made public. Curtains were
drawn on the room where I was changing
when I noticed a man walking past repeatedly,
presumably to watch the silhouette of
the nude figure through a crack in the linen.
Longing is always a threat but that
which is longed after is not the threat
nor is it the threatened. The town had
spread and melted, promising again that
with time, the concept of a heart—
of any central location—diminishes.