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can't stop the spirit when it needs you
this life is more than just a read-thru(the red hot chili peppers)

Steve asks when I'll have something ready for him to read, and I can't answer. It's impossible to write through the blockage in my head. A sinus headache seven days running or more (I've lost count) makes anything more than the most basic of mental functions next to impossible.

Not that I don't try; I do. I sit at the screen, poking at the keyboard with willing fingers, but it isn't WRITING, not the kind I mean, or the kind he wants.

But today will perhaps be better: An early drive coaxed some poetry from me; head-clearing, that.

And the images along the way serve to break up some of the sludge in my skull.

A plastic wrapping unwinds from a covered load, sheer streamer making sinuous shapes behind the bulky truck.

Smear of clothing on the shoulder, like a man disintegrated from within.

Tight traffic, sandwiched between a Mustang and an unmarked trooper. Ahead, in the Mustang, a nearly shaved head bobs to unheard music. Behind, in my rearview, the trooper chews gum. I watch, hoping he'll blow a bubble. I lose both companions at the tollbooth before he does. I imagine unmarked trooper blowing bubbles as he drives down 95.

Whether he does or not is immaterial to my amusement.

The Inner Harbor is a toy city built upon a sheet of glass. Sun shines into my eyes, onto my skin. I am, it is, we are, all come together at once. I am the Universe and the Universe is me.

Inhale. Exhale. Return to the mortal coil, finish driving.

Yes. A good day to write.