Lines of documents lay dusted with soot, lining the bottom of the wishing well. When I was younger there was never anything expendable to be thrown in. Wishes are heavy and expensive, so dreams became more of a priority, as they were cheaper and less likely to surface.

I remember being a boy of 9, all but innocent and hopeful; egg headed and tragic avoiding all instances of reality, technology, and society. Radios always sang songs of desperation, echo-ing an internal monologue that never seemed to pause. It was suggested by a therapist after a suicide attempt, to write down the conversation and throw them into the well. I could never have caught up with the slur and fast forward essay like ramblings, so whatever streams I could catch I wrote as poetry.

"Call it, the dreaming well."
"If they're in the well, they're about as productive as sleeping. Maybe I should call it the sleeping well." I responded.
Frustrated and irritated by another come back, my therapist gave in.
"I want you to write to copies, and hand me one every time you decide to throw one in. Do you think you can do this?"
I nodded.
On lined paper torn out of a pad, I saw the heading, "Jay Despers and The Sleeping Well."

There's this ostentacious way about the trendy tea time brigades occupying park benches or ledges. Latte loaded leisure scheduled school boys and school girls I envy, for the mere fact that I could never let my guard down or my senses fail to get to that point.

she was pressed up
tried to talk up
every line about her life
I tried listening
i tried wishing
but no stars were out tonight
cross talked
and out I walked away

just this once,
i'd love to love
i'd love to love
her

the road was hollow
when I got up
enough nerve to turn around
with a fellow
who didn't follow
my eyes across the ground
cross talked
crossed out goodbye

just this once
I'd love to love
I'd love to love
I'd love to tell her
I haven't felt too much
but I've seen enough
I've seen enough
and I know I'd be forgotten
but we could try,
just this once

There's a serenity in realizing you won't live forever. The real change occurs when you realize forever might not be through the night; or that there is something waiting for you-- either a looming shadow, or a bright light-- and you're not certain when it's going to engulf you, but it lingers and lays low until you least expect it. I've planted a seed of hope inside of myself, and unfortunately there is a barricade of weeds-- dirty, abhorring acts of self-hatred that are strangling the seed of hope. Peacefully, the wind graces my face with a grazing gust of a breeze, and I feel peace and serene and dream of what I've done already in my time.

I went to chicago once, and drank myself into the saddest, sweetest memory. There are sometimes when a moment is too overwhelming to live in, and so you replace the present with a more tranquil, dulling momentum. A bus ride through the northeast into the midwest-- a train ride through the heart of the west to new mexico-- weeds waving straw and corn, whatever else was hidden from my hindsight. I was given the opportunity to see the most beautiful and decorated tragedies of American history; of a native way of life that no longer exists, except for show.

A plane brought me through the Phoenix sunrise, and again over the Phoenix sunrise, as I flew west to fly east. There was an array of pink and heat that woke me and nursed me back to sleep through the windows. "Du wiste wie eine blume en der wuste" or some sort of poem in German, the one sad phrase I can muster.

There were ordinary days, fire escapes and walks from Harlem to the Lower East Side, where I mistook friendship for love. It was love, just a different way of showing it.

I've fallen in love, and fallen out of love. I've gotten drunk-- laughing and crying and wondering why oh why me, all in the same minute.

I've created art, poetry, music, been apart of and been without. I've heard chords that still ring in my memory.

The point of death isn't as dreary and dreadful as we like to imagine. It happens when you've far surpassed your capabilities as an ordinary human. Every experience I will bring with me, and hopefully rather than feel the sun, or feel the quite under the power of the moon, I'll become apart of it, in energy, in love, in spirit. Every person, for better or worse, has become an infinite member of my life. And for which, I am eternally privileged.

Love Always,

Joe.