I Felt Suddenly Cruel, Like I´d Told

You Paid For Every Second Of Beauty You Managed To Steal.

She Was Sitting Cross-legged On Her Bed In Her White Kimono, Writing In A Notebook With An Ink Pen She Dipped In A Bottle. 'never Let A Man Stay The Night,' She Told Me. 'dawn Has A Way Of Casting A Pall On Any Night Magic.' The Night Magic Sounded Lovely. Someday I Would Have Lovers And Write A Poem After.

My House Is Modern, But I Like My Writing Room To Be Old Fashioned. I Write On A Little Wooden Secretary Desk.

It Was Her First Book, An Indigo Cover With A Silver Moonflower, An Art Nouveau Flower, I Traced My Finger Along The Silver Line Like Smoke, Whiplash Curves. ... I Touched The Pages Her Hands Touched, I Pressed Them To My Lips, The Soft Thick Old Paper, Yellow Now, Fragile As Skin. I Stuck My Nose Between The Bindings And Smelled All The Readings She Had Given, The Smell Of Unfiltered Cigarettes And The Espresso Machine, Beaches And Incense And Whispered Words In The Night. I Could Hear Her Voice Rising From The Pages. The Cover Curled Outward Like Sails.

But That Was The Thing About Zero. Its Weakness. Even If Zero Had Taken Over The Entire Universe, The Biggest Fascist Of All, One Tiny Gesture Could Deny It. One Footprint, One Atom. You Didn't Have To Be A Genius. You Didn't Even Have To Know That Was What You Were Doing. You Made A Mark. You Changed Something. It Said, "a Human Being Passed Here." And Changed Zero To One.