I want to be able to sleep in an open field, to travel west, to walk freely at night.

I talk to God but the sky is empty.

I lean to you, numb as a fossil. Tell me I'm here.

The sheets grow heavy as a lecher's kiss.

But writing poems and letters doesn't seem to do much good.

I must learn more about these people―try to understand them, put myself in their place. No, instead I am so busy keeping my head above water that I scarcely know who I am, much less who anyone else is.

But when it came right down to it, the skin of my wrist looked so white and defenseless that I couldn't do it.