I want to dance between the monoliths we raise, chase you and be chased. I want the fire always burning, though it is already hot. I want us to flinch faster than the scorpions–they try to stab our hands we dart away. I want us to sing until we lose our voices. Our conversations are written in sand the wind erases. They are recorded on air the wind blows away. They are burned into memories the peyote confuses and the madness destroys.

We will not know where the water comes from, but it will come. Seagulls will dive into the spikes we set for them. They will not know what compels them. The authorities will look, but they will never find us. Our visions are not legal.

What is the best thing you have done without any kind of thinking it through?

Are you a fugitive in your own imagination? If not, why not?

I know the work is at least 391 pages long. Judging by page 391 it is much, much longer. I know it has a preface, I have page xiv. I know it is divided into chapters, I can see their titles: Thunderstorm, Tokyo at Night, Broken Chair, and others that appear to be the names of characters. I do not have any consecutive pages. One name has come up twice, but so common it could mean two people. The writing is divergent, a different voice to every page, topics that leap from paragraph to paragraph: the ink of an octopus, a brother and sister racing cars, the stairwell of a downtown mall, the conversation a young woman overhears. I do not know if the pages are meant to be read consecutively or in the order that I am finding them.

Maybe I am imagining this, in fact I must be, in fact it fails more often than it succeeds, but tell me, do you work hints into each page, are they a treasure hunt? Page 72 described a pavilion in a park. I spent an afternoon searching parks and found page 219 in the second one I searched. But then, I was so sure Sunken Ship meant the naval memorial, and though I worked my fingernails into every crack of the thing, the warden thought I was crazy and there was nothing there.

No, I must be imagining it. I can’t be the only one finding these pages. I can’t be the only one they are meant for. I wonder how many people are gathering up these broken pieces of you. I wonder if we have more in common with each other than we do with you.

You must have a few projects half started, a few vows made with friends on windy hilltops at two in the morning, a few adventure brochures stashed under your pillow. Maybe this is the summer you follow them through.

What do your dangling projects mean to you?

I have kept the phrases my closest friends gave me. A teenager is “a case of ginger ale”, empty praise from the human resources director is “a licorice reward”, and the rocks that reach out into the bay of the small town where I grew up are “where the dragon fell asleep a thousand years ago”. I can barely describe how painful it was to choose what to keep and what to leave behind. These phrases are the best things I am keeping.

Is it crazy to take a bus this far? I cannot see myself doing it by air—too clean, too impersonal. When I arrive I will step straight down onto the broken asphalt of the parking lot. Austin, I will move my lips. I will be in the thick of its air and its smells, its dust. Change comes up at you from the ground, it doesn’t feel right any other way. This ride is centering, a stench coming from the lavatory, a rhythm maintaining the brink of nausea, a boredom that makes all my music and all my books seem boring. I only wish it could take longer. I wanted this so badly.

I want to find who you can be now that I have washed my context clean. I want to feel a rush of nerves, to laugh with you without knowing where such laughter leads, to kiss you and have no idea that a kiss can be so thrilling. I want you to give me a phrase I have never heard before.

I can tell you took all the photos on the same day. The first ones were of me, looking under the table, asking other customers who didn’t understand me. You must have been close enough I should have seen you. How do I miss the things that are most obvious?

You gave me hints: your body wrapped in a scarf, your face covered by the camera, your lips close with one finger touching, your footprints in wet sand.

A palm frond, a seagull picking at a crab shell, five customers examining a tomato, the ice cube you melted onto the ridge of your pelvis. Finally, a cliff with a hand glider diving. I had a dream like that. I have the photos now, and I only wish I knew how to see like you.

In a secret field, you will run up to a scarecrow. It will lift its pumpkin head and rake us free a tunnel through the sky. The leaves will be firm enough to stand on.

When you stand in front of me and sing I can hear your voice behind me.

I want to find the end of this world, the dome that has enclosed us, but our scarecrow, with straw dropping out from between his buttons, is no help, he sleeps, slumped against his rake. I ask you, but you touch a finger to my lip. I wonder if your eyes have always looked like this.

There is nothing left to say. The autumn never ends, and perhaps I should be concerned about how many leaves remain, but there are no question marks to ask with, only songs.