Slide past Toledo and Boston, straight on to Meredith, New Hampshire

funny funny - i see that everyone has demons as everyone gets chewed up by mosquitoes to varying degrees, as everyone gets tickled and cooked by the sunlight to varying degrees (does my skin itch because of bite or because of burn?), so i see when i look them over

we've been intoxicated for days, on a bender incommensurate to our actual needs or so they say, because apparently everything is alright, beautiful, good even. but i wonder what joke is being played on us that we are so delightfully tragic, so erotically bored, needing so much to stretch out our arms and grab. we're out here getting bruised up and crispy, stewing in juices we have injected into our brains.

groups, conflagrations, gatherings. we're in the middle of the burning man of the motorcycle community and i wonder how we all (not just us but anyone joined up for moments unforgettable) manage not to tear each other apart, how we keep things copacetic, how we manage to ignore the simmering ailments below our surfaces. POOR BABY, i say, what ails you? i really want to know. maybe we can make sense of this. we seem to me to be storms brewing within delicate webs of skin and hair. how do we manage? how do we not let the storm pour out of our insides through our nostrils and belly buttons or spit it up in a ball of bile-colored mucus?

but of course in the mornings the lake is cool and you can see straight to the bottom in the shallows. two swallows dip and dive overhead, looking as if they are trying to kiss in mid-air. my skin smells good. i find a fuzzed-over anchor and some empty mussel shells in the water. everything is delicious and the drinks are cold. i look at insects i've never seen before. i feel fantastic and more alert and ready than i have in a while even though i am sleeping far less. we all laugh until our stomachs hurt and we spill things and break things and clean up and take the recycling out and make plans for when we ride further down the coast. we play endless games of cards and we cook in the sun.

i say goodnight. get out of here. you're ridiculous.