A late summer afternoon that already feels over. There was a life here, wasn’t there? You can almost still hear it. A wedding; you gave a speech that left no impression. This is how it will be after you’re gone. As if it never happened.

She held up her hand and said, no photos. I don’t want to remember anything about this.

What are you looking for?
Just a glimpse. 

In the fullness of the bleakness of late November a nod of gratitude for this day.

The species had evolved a highly athletic technique of depositing, almost contemptuously, startlingly vivid droppings on vertical surfaces.

Your unabashed self-confidence leads me to question your intelligence.

Notes for a series of notes.

The more complex the organism, the more putrescent in decay. Also, the more difficult to love.

Other people presented an unflattering mirror.

The billion flinches that rebuilt your face.

Reflected in the cafe window he saw a man of whom no one would take second notice, nor guess at his former imagined glories.

Leaving a loved place for what is probably the last time. A place that already exists primarily in memory. Could there be any more fraught and melancholy words than next year?

These are the facts. These are the trees. You are the wind.

I was young. I thought I was an artist, but I didn’t even know what that meant. Looking back, I’m embarrassed—even now, for what is obvious to others but not to me.