Alexander Spiess

We blew at the moon not because it sounded good, but because it felt better.

We stood under the night hoping the stars would fall, and when they didn’t, cried for gravity’s rainbow.

We prayed for aliens but got snow.

We climbed the mountain because there was only one way up. 

We went to the peak not because we couldn’t see it but because we knew it was there.

We re-considered why we are something rather than nothing, and smiled because we are.

We took intermission from the greatest show on earth.

We were critters in the night.

We spoke in circles because in circles we spoke.

We blew at the moon because it felt good.

We had an excuse to unite, and chose not to.

We drank poison to spite our enemies.

We feared the world as we did when the beach was only a place where the land met the water.

We covered our face because we were too ashamed to not have the answers.

We hoped and despaired. 

We crafted, and cooked, and discarded the detritus.

We took pity on the powerful.

We embraced the powerless. 

We broke bread with strangers.

We kept in touch while keeping a distance. 

We felt the pain of others as we’ve never known it before.

We let the clock tik tok so everyone could feel fame. 

We gave agency to the ego.

We killed the ego. 

We questioned our intentions.

We questioned the media. 

We listened to the metallic corridors of non-places—airports, stations, hubs for the moment without place without cause. 

We watched them remain.

We laughed when we were supposed to cry and cried when we were supposed to laugh.

We stopped fighting the tears and leaned into them.

We blew at the moon because it felt good.

We fell in and out of love with each other. 

We fell in and out of love with life. With work. With ourselves. 

We had our hearts broken so they could be mended. 

We spun our wheels and changed our tires and spun our wheels again.

We learned love is not a reflection of self.

We learned to be selfless.

We learned to remember, so we can better remember to forget.

We spoke in circles.

We loved our family.

We loved our friends.

We were so proud of what they’ve done, because what they’ve done for themselves they do for all of us, and we love them. 

We called them, we FaceTimed, We Skyped. 

We zoomed, onward.

We envied deciduous trees because they could retreat from the world. 

We loathed our coniferous bodies, prickly, strident, acidic, bitter.  Burdened to endure.

We bend don’t break.

We respected the muscles of the actor and artist. Who can flex empathy from their vault to create and be others, while truly being themselves. 

We empathized with Uncle Glenn. Rest his soul. We lost an artist. We lost a father.

We lost a matriarch in the family.

We lost a great many things. 

We burned out and renewed, and burned out again.

We rode the wave.

We sat in our room with a view and wondered if the world outside resembled what was in.

We shuffled and moaned and groaned and hoped we wouldn’t blame each other. 

We hoped when the fog cleared the writing would be on the walls.

We talked and didn’t talk, and called, and hung up, and ignored and yearned.

We returned to our nightmares, tumbling cars in the rain. 

We swam over rooftops.

We flew underwater.

We played hopscotch on the dark side of the moon.

We faced the ether and made it solid.

We considered the lobster but favored the horseshoe crab. And repeated, what the fuck is water?                                                                                                                                            

We embraced the loneliness. 

We re-read the classics. 

We were always in yestermorrow. Between here and there.

We blew at the moon because it felt good.

We explained entropy ad-noseum as the fundamental theory of everything.

We all die young, and time does exist without age.

We embraced the suck

We heard and didn’t listen.

We respected each others space. 

We challenged what it meant to be productive.

We challenged what it meant to be loved.

We challenged the optics of love and connection.

We challenged touch.

We challenged communication.

We called the dress black……NOTTT again.

We let aliens fly under the radar, quite literally, and said nothing.

We made art.

We won awards.

We enjoyed.

We minimized the distance between how we are living and how we had wished we had lived. 

We did what we loved because we love it. Not because if we didnt do it we would have no purpose. 

We blame ourselves.

We blame the Chinese.

We blame Oceania.

We are bat soup.

We are the pea-brained amygdala.  

We are the lizard people.

We are the deep state cabal.

We are the globalists.

We are the tired roadies on capitalism’s tour bus. 

We are the ghost planes on contract layover. 

We are the non-places.

We are the bonds and interest rates. 

We are the caloric give and take of our own valuation.

We are the solipsistic mood.

We are enlightenment because we are impermanence.

We are dead because we’re alive.

We are earths greatest allergy.

We are still here.