How long have I been spinning in this blue bottle of light? And still, I know so little... And still, I waste so much of my time. I feel as if my whole life has a fever and I'm sliding down a well lit road full of empty signs. Did I spend my twenties bristling at myself? Slipping in and slipping out of who I am? Without a doubt. And what did I find? I found this body breathing animal steam. I found love all around me thicker than cream. Oh this year has taken what it wanted to take from me Oh this year has given what it wanted to give. I take it In, I let it Go. And lately I feel as if I'm living underwater. My mind is full of currents and my throat Is full of laughter I think about my parents and their parents and their parents and their parents and their parents and their parents and their parents and the patterns that are scattered through my movements like a song I barely know. Looking back behind me: a sea of endless afternoons so fine. Looking up ahead: a foggy morning above a field of winter wheat. And beyond that? A thresher looming. Overhead I hear the sound of the seasons passing slow. Oh, world. How I'll miss you when you let me go.

I'm learning how to praise again. I can almost see my hands through the thick Atlantic haze that bends the morning in and out and in and out and in and out of shape again. My roomates float around the room. They drink instant coffee cold. Am I awake? Am I awake? I am awake. What else is there to know? Is there a word for this? Waking up to find that whatever's in the wood and the walls and the wires is on your side again? I don't know the word. Or I've forgotten... But I'm learning how to praise again. It's going slow. These things take time. I haven't heard your voice in a little while now. I hope you're doing well. I hope you hear this and you smile.

All of a sudden, I hear the house expanding outward and the piercing yellow roundness of that sound is like a friend rising to meet me. I guess that means the drugs are kicking in. My limbs are wooden, but I still drag them through the blue, incessant hissing weathered luminescence of an early Februrary morning I feel so moved to press the world against my skin Oh I get so worried about the future And I know that's real, I know that's real... I know that's real... I know that's real... I know that's real... but the more I try to prepare myself the more I spin my wheels And while I'm spinning the seasons change around me they go from bright metallic pink to pale pea green to winter white. And I'm grateful to be here. Grateful to the women in my life.

Downstairs, women talk religion, adolescent sex, and indecision. Upstairs, a bearable defeat swings over the mountain, heading east. It sings to the dogs and it strips their bark. It makes the sedate blue day a little bit longer. Everything that I will ever say is making it's bright way to me. Downstairs the women go away but their talk it sticks around. It singes the trees and it strips their bark. It makes the sedate blue day a little bit longer.

I wish I was a raven. A black blaze over the Malahat, floating around. I wish I was a wave in a blue peninsula crashing into sound. In a future life I will float all over the road like a dress in the breeze. And whatever's left will live alone in the bones of this Mp3. I want you to know I tried to be open as a window when the wind blew through the thin clothes of my life. And if I failed to hold that line, and if I fail again, I hope, on balance, I did you right. I hope, on balance, I was your friend. Did I help the light to bend? I was born with a white skin. I went to the right schools. Who did I use those weapons to defend? Outside in the cool night I hear mating calls fading in. I sit in my room listening to Joan Armatrading sing "how do you make it through this life?" How do I begin? How do I shake the sleep and the weight out of my limbs? I dream of Walter Benjamin I dream about Beirut. My clothes don't fit. My fears won't quit I feel so destitute. But oh, this world, I love the way it howls all night and it's a brighter thing than I can sing to be here by your side. I want you to know I tried to be a good man despite the way my gender was defined. And if I failed to break that bind and if I fail again, I hope, on balance, I was the kind of kind, effeminate man that you could get behind. I gave what I could give. I'll say it again. It was such a bright thing to have lived here when you lived. Outside in the blue night I hear sirens fading out. I sit in my room listening to O.V. Wright shout. And behind that voice I love so much I hear another sound. It's coming from everywhere at once. I hear it in the middle distance Steady like a hunch. At first I barely understood the grammar. But now it's clearer than a Dream Friends song: I hear the sound of every being in the world, from the crows to the cover girls from the shoes on my feet to Yao Ming's hair to the lemon trees to the loud spring air calling out loud. They're saying two things underneath their breath at the same time. They're saying I'm trying. I'm really trying. I'm really trying. I'm really trying. And the second cry, coming out of the world: You're here. Right here. And right here It's okay.