To my mind, here and then gone,

To my memory, a dewdrop on a grass blade,

To my ambition, which stretches for the stars,

To the depression that crawls into my bones,

To the frayed fibers masquerading as my nerves,

To my words, a wild horse, galloping in magnificent abandon,

To that same horse, kicking and rearing at the sight of a harness,

To my eyes, cursed and blessed to see what’s wrong,

To my brain and body, forced into uneasy coexistence,

To the occasional ceasefire in my head,

To my to-do lists and the tomorrows that will tackle them,

To the lines I will never remember and the plans I will never make,

To the beauty I finally see as it fades,

To the summers spent in a book, by the lake,

To the ocean, now so viscerally home,

To the cheap brandy that unmoors my boat,

To the absent compass in my head,

To the rudderlessness of my existence,

To the todays that slip into yesterdays,

To the menacing clock, which will not stop,

To the ticks that nestle in my old dog’s locks,

To my comforter, worn, torn, and faded,

To the next five decades, after which I will dutifully lie down and die,

leave all of this to disintegrate,

evaporate,

To you, I dedicate this germ of an idea,

this story I never will write.