top, theme, base. three things.

I don't know how long that mosquito was attached to my right finger before I noticed it was there, but it was long enough that when I waved it away, its stinger got stuck and for a moment it was convinced that it had sucked on the last hand of its short life. There it is swinging from side to side from its one tool for gathering sustenance, like it's tied by a tether. Minutes later a white welt starts to itch, and I wonder if it's the result of the sting (a slender shaft for collecting small amounts of blood we'll never miss) or from all the dirt and germs you can't believe a mosquito can fit on its little probe. And I wonder if when AIDS patients get stung by an insect, does the same welt appear?

It's sunny and 75F., and I can't stop grinding my teeth. I keep asking myself, “How ya doin'?” and answering, “I've been better.” “Yeah.” It starts in the morning or whenever I wake up, coming up from the nice and cozy waters of sleep feels like being pulled out of my skin. Start with the skull and get a real good grip. After that it's just a matter of pulling and pulling until all that's left is a soppy pile of skin and hair, and dangling above (suspended by the skull with a powerful vice) is a twitching and squirming (and fully, fully awake) me. It's not pain, so that's a plus. Not pain, but all the discomfort you might expect if you were to be thusly separated. And that's how the day begins. Completely different bedroom. Exactly the same fears and uncertainties, mingled with some new ones. The only way to shake off the beast who has decided while you slept that he'd take it upon himself to hump you all day long, is to pull the chord and start the engine. Try to distribute some of the blood that's settled in pools overnight in all the wrong places.

If the next phase of human evolution is toward the floral (olfactory brilliance and beauty and none of that crying over nonsense) then I wasn't necessarily crazy to have obsessed over the resemblance between winter trees and blood vessels. You start at the base of the skull and there's a little nub of brain we could never do without. It's what makes us fight death, but at the same time invite it ('cuz we like our cigarettes and our booze and our sex with strangers). It's reptilian and we inherit it from our fish ancestors. Above that nub, both figuratively and literally, is our mammalian brain. Mammal brain loves warmth, both literally and figuratively. Loves family and safety and preservation of those things. Loves sex with one person. Mammal brain would have nowhere to stand, tho, if not for reptile brain which still makes us warm and loving mammals fly into rages from time to time. Atop and afront mammal brain (literally and figuratively) is flower brain whose resources are vast and unexplored. Flower brain sucks nourishment from the sun and mourns that its present host spends so much time indoors. Flower brain spreads out like a leaf and is concerned with the olfactory. Flower brain secretly laughs every time we marvel at the time-machine nature of the scent of our old high-school or ex-girlfriends. Flower brain germinates through spores and without discrimination. Flower brain is a whore by our standards. One whose nobility is eternal. As will be evident long after we're dead.