The sweetest candied yams or debilitating depression? Hmm...

[WE HAVE TO GO INTO SLOW MODE--IT'S NECESSARY FOR-TO-WRITE, FOR SOME REASON. COLD FEET AND FINGERS, i THINK, SEEM TO BETTER REALIZE SOMETHING.]

"Counterfeit exhaustion got him there, but the coming fall is all his own. His pulse is strong and slow, which seems odd to him. Under his breath, his own voice mutters to him but he isn't making it out."

[YOU HAVE TO FALL INTO THE VOICE, AND THEN YOU HAVE TO FIGURE OUT WHAT IT'S SAYING; YOU SO EASILY WRITE ABOUT BEING this PRESENT THAT IT MUST NATURALLY BE GROUNDED IN ITS POSSIBILITIES. (As endless...? Or else you're reading Heidegger these days.)]

"Instead, he gulps the coffee sitting on the church pew beside him and wishes he could be of service to someone."

[YOU'RE NOT PRESENTLY EXHIBITING THE MARK OF A PROLIFIC WRITER!]

(To what do you owe the promise of poetry? Why must being be constantly translated as doing? Doing what!? Bah. You wanna talk about something like love!? God, no--that's what writing is for. Anyway, what's there to know about two people?; we know nothing about Two People. It's only ever one-wanting-wanting-wanting--(ever something more? (Loser.)--one more...whether for-to look at, or else to sit pretty for. I wish I could say, 'Fuck it,' honestly.)

"She's saying from behind him, 'I never met a man like that before...he's like a kid in a candy store when he's sitting on our counselor's stupid, green couch.'"

[LIKE A STEADY-STREAM OF WORDS IN MONOTONE? OR A POT-SHOT, CHEAPLY THROWN AND LACKING CONVICTION?]

"'I feel like I'm putting you on the spot by asking--you don't have to answer...'"

[THE FLOWERS ARE S0 RED UNDER THIS LIGHT! IT'S TERRIBLY LIKE COMPLETION. LAST-LINE, LAST-LINE, LAST-LINE... Man, what a freakin' waste.]