Would you not resist my curse if I was mummified? Even if a golden scarab ate up your insides? If I were the devil, would I get your sympathy? Would you reach under the table for my cloven hoof at tea?

Would you curl up with me if I stayed in bed for weeks? Or follow me past bears and bees to swim in crystal creeks? If I brought you to a playground, would you swing on the swings with me? And if I wrote some stupid songs, would you sing harmony?

If I brought you ugly parsnips, would you bake a parsnip pie? Would you ne'er forget me 'till the week before you die?

//

Pass a compost heap on a shitty old bike. It smells like everything I've ever loved or liked. Smells like August nights at a lover's house, blackberry stains on our hands and mouths. Take a shortcut through the stadium lot. I can see the stars, I can smell the pot. The slue is sluggish and the kids are bored. Eugene, Eugene, know that you're adored.

And I don't think I'd want a whole galaxy; maybe just an asteroid belt. It stayed pretty solid and it felt sublime, but that first kiss made me melt.

I know that it's no longer cool to play truth or dare like we did in school, but I've done most of the dares. I'd probably do them again. And I'll tell you the truth; I mean, you're my friend. You gotta move, you gotta move, or you'll never know just how much you love your home. Then you'll be riding south down the interstate and have some weird creepy feeling of your ultimate fate.