slowdive tender_square i breaststroke through algae, traveling toward shore. an awareness blooms that i am dreaming, logic unfolding like a pattern of lily pads. "it's a test," i tell myself. "don't let this moment slip away." i gulp a deep breath and submerge beneath the surface, propelling my body to bottom. all around me the water murky and dark, the colour of crocodiles. i keep diving, slow to settle. a panic overtakes me that i've gone too far. i change direction and rise, then, talk myself out of my fear and focus on descent before finally rationalizing that it's all too much. my head breaks the still surface and i gasp for air. i sit up in bed, jolting from sheets. 230819 ... raze milan could never say his own name. he always had to spell it. every time he called me on the phone, the first thing i heard was, "hey. this is m-i-l-a-n." he wrote me a letter once. so many small blue words crammed onto two lined pieces of paper. "i for some reason expect to see you in a faux fur coat in the middle of summer," he wrote. "all white. like a virgin awaiting anonymous rape." i didn't understand half the shit he said. he was a confusing, maddening, fascinating person to know. he told me my writing was too plain. he thought he knew me better than i knew myself. he didn't know much of anything. but he knew good music. he burned me copies of a bunch of albums he thought i might like. "melville" and "whale_music" by rheostatics. "brown sugar" by d'angelo. "giant steps" by the boo radleys. the first two ours albums. "xtrmntr" by primal scream. and "pygmalion" by slowdive. i smoked pot from a half-clogged tobacco pipe and threw on the last of those cds late one night eighteen years ago when sleep was slow to arrive. there are no words for the places it took me. so here's to the light outside. it's all a dream. 230911 what's it to you? who go blather from