Adam Young

"Throw a lamp on this load of ice. Okay, suddenly it’s all become crystal clear and there’s no other way of saying that the 10MG we suggest is actually worth the billions of diamond shards in your eyes because they make you see things that aren’t there; but the more you look, the more you realize they ARE there. Dust in the eyes. Very skinny people in the pantry, climbing the shelves, hand over hand in a dangling daisy chain that reaches down to the tile I’ve always done a bad job keeping clean. But that isn’t even right, so we forget about those and we just stare at each other with big cow eyes and wonder what’s gonna happen next. So we drove and drove and wound up in Florence and there was clam chowder somewhere on the way back. She was so pretty. I was dizzy but somehow it was like the first time I really paid attention to anything. Later my hand slipped into hers and I still don’t know how that happened but I guess she liked it and it made me feel real — because even ghosts tire of living like ghosts sometimes, I’ll be honest with you…… Those eyes and the way she looks at you with them…. makes you wanna do things you don’t know how to do, like prick a hole in the milky way galaxy and thread a needle and pull it down like a big milky parachute for her to twirl under and collapse into. And then suddenly our faces are closer than I thought they probably should’ve been given the scenario and who’s mother might be around. And then I remembered there are no mothers in the industrial part of town when two kids are twirling with a parachute in a parking lot. For some reason my hand found hers and I don’t know how that happened, it was just so natural yet abrupt, I felt like I should say sorry or at least get down on one knee and apologize like a gentleman. Suddenly there wasn’t one growl, there were two of them and they were on opposite sides of the park and we didn’t know what to do. But we walked slowly and made it to the car and our throats were okay. The rest was blurry, beautifully so. This was a glass ring around the perimeter of a venue ceiling that caught the light and made me wanna climb things. And then I thought about islands and The Endurance and the journey I’ve got planned which is almost like a book with the last 10 pages ripped out. I like that though because it keeps me guessing; I don’t wanna know the end.

But the insects under the counter try to bite me with their long quills and sharp brittle black legs cut like razors and that keeps me distracted."

--Adam Young