## Dear Earth to the kids with above average reading levels may your curiosities not fail where your country did to the addictive personalities with bottles and small bags, loud voice smelling your bravery by the line, emptied of sorrow better than the bottle to the creatine-laden lifters and the high school trophy case A toast to you tail-gating prophets Hooray for the dollar hooray for the fuck-me dresses hooray for scars of being a scholar hooray for the abuse of every substance to the chaos in every infinite expanding universe sails aimt to the horizon taking off of spheres blanketed 5th dimension-blindness while dancing on for progress To every girl that thought their first time would be sweet to every boy who thought his wife wouldn't cheat to the starving dogs of iran, burning fur on the air and the guinea pigs slaughters in South America (lacking location, but not care) to the disinformation arrogance of suicide nets on iPhone factories to the nerdy kids becoming rich and claiming victories (that lonely word still ringing from their high school gym) to the fuck-collectors graduating, career-aligned out of college that will never have their children's respect for lack of knowing how to communicate love outside of the missionary position To the failure-mothered divorced at 20 and letting children learn alone latchkey kids abandoned to TVs and libraries in forever homes reading George Orwell and the curriculum falls off, 10th grade english where they learned to hold court and scoff Toast to the 14 year old bulimics of Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, Bronx, perfection is an ideal in constantly improving architecture under duress to the ones who slept with their first true love and kept in touch until they married someone else to the people stargazing in the darkest black of montauk before dawn with all due respect to the flowers uncut and wilting in winter before spring blooms them back to sprouts to the fake online boyfriends that garnered jealousy in friends and eventually became the vicarous romantic pursuit for them all to the advertisers writing lesser countries day-by-day for full stomachs and the annual family vacation making childhood memories with their children that they never had (you didn't know and most mean well) to the valiant toupe of the used-car salesman outside his bedroom, and inside his bedroom until he is laying down to sleep lying to the world for the benefit of a man you never chose, never loved, still you do what's expected to the readers not imposing favorite novels, suggesting them over minimum wage smile on their face never able to afford the entire list their children handwrote to Santa (this actually happens) to the people in traffic allowing others to pass without anger not cheated by zippers to the auto-didacts without god complexes knowledge for knowledge's sake, eager to teach and help the uninformed, to the genuine act of giving and the non-obligatory thanks given with gratitude, rare, understated, prescription perfect prepubescents robbed of fear and mania childhood monsters not in closets and lacking imagination lacking masturbation to the narcissistic youth condemned to never sit still in public timid conversationalist locked inside themselves to the husbands missing wives on business trips, two weeks turned six weeks suicide without return flights tripled insurance payouts 4AM Handshakes goodbye with the revelation that writers are not rich in the way bankers are not creative lenses to the shared lighter cigarettes while ordering after midnight pickup meals at diners to never falling asleep again, this is not dream, you have never dreamt a new face, to the 25 hour work weekend all to the appreciation of suffering in others Earth, you look lonely, carrying luggage through JFK without a travel companion Earth, i can hear you crying late nights after the party clears out Earth, we keep burning the candle at ends, middle, Earth I am sorry about the middle east, hiroshima, nagasaki, laos, How about a glass of water? Earth, we don't mean to be so dirty all of the time I go to movies alone now Earth, your oceans taste like kool-aid Everything we use is artificial, even our use Earth, We were just using you Earth, nothing is Holy i learned it in books and lied for years you do fine without fucking I read more than i probably should Earth, all my favorite things are qwritten on the cadavaers of your sprouting trees Your blood was spilled across the gulf coast We're really trying i swear it Earth, Please hold on, Dan Neist beat the cancer and so can you If only the park didn't close at dusk Earth, we forgot to keep caring, If i get married will you sing to me I'm a monogamist i'm sorry Earth, i'll give you back all the sleeping fertilizer when i awake nothing ever died, nothing ever dies, nothing is dead it is all alive in subsconscious working at it Earth, no one knows what IT is You told me once and i forgot as i fell asleep Earth, you are so small I only i could show you how i see you carpeting dirt floors touching your oceans before dawn in perfect silent night we wavew at your brothers and sisters emanating light everywhere everything Earth, how don't they see it? ## I was born, i thought, I died I was born, i thought, and then i died? I think bombs took lives with stars and stripes while children crossed minefields to get to homeroom too many lost loves in youth I was born and wars waged to keep cars running while innocents were tortured and 4% of death row inmates are known to be wrongly convicted My brother grew colder to truths good people became husks, addicted, accepting, unamericans I wasn't alone and millions still died in the holocaust No nation was evil, elephants still wanted midwives in birth the insects won the population arms race I decided this is a good home I died The end doesn't jsutify the means my friends were getting fucked and it isn't my thing People are not evil and no one would listen My mother worries what my corpse will learn, discomfort I thought it was important to smile all the time and people divorced I didn't know what to do when my sister turned seven I thought it can be more than this and there was more than one way Freedom definitely has a price be grateful for convenient parking TV sold me reality, and i sold reality back to TV my reality was better than it could market every person luminous expanding universes within universes I died, everyone died, everything always dying That was good public surveys of the aftermath revealed a difference of opinion we were all fascinated with life and didn't ever admit or share it always singing offkey songs about it, the tones all wrong to strangers ears everyone being, even the jellyfish and peanuts ants between surface and sewage, birds drew property lines while the squirrels gentrified summer real estate