Just start.

(for David Lynch)
You’re someone’s favorite song,
a needlepoint dialogue stitched into their heart.
You, too, can channel photons into a tidal wave of despair.
You do not need permission to excavate your secret joy.
To build everything is your birthright.

When you’re gone they’ll hang pieces of you in a museum.
Tour guides will direct their attention:
“This is the scar from trying to jump a fence when he was twelve.”
“This is the temperature of their forehead after three hours of dancing.”
“This is the color of her iris when she saw her beloved for the first time.”
High schoolers will grind you into powder and snort you.
Ants will be inspired by your temerity and begin to unionize.
Adults will stroll past and find themselves aging in reverse.
Flies will enter your orbit and have heart attacks.

Perception is, in fact, our only responsibility.

There will be roadblocks
(wooden sawhorses, really,
firewood in disguise),
officious directives to stop,
to be serious,
to forget.
In exchange for a smallpox blanket,
you will be asked to stub yourself out like a two-drag cigarette.
Don’t.

You must let go of the anguished belief that your life should have turned out differently.
You are free, and therefore dangerous.
This clown college choir needs your voice,
and the chord we hum in unison can sink battleships.
If.