"I Know You Can Read My Mind"

You can cry on my shoulder anytime, no questions asked

You can use me to train for the Guinness Book of World Records for Lingering

You can take me for a Lou Reed ride in your badass White Lightning truck

You can leave inscrutably soft messages on my voice mail anytime you catch yourself feeling lonely, bereft, existentially woebegone

You can be a beautiful mess around me anytime between the hours of 10 a.m. and 10 p.m.

You can shriek, stomp, and stammer, but there you’ve got some competition

You can do yourself a favor and watch Kuch Kuch Hota Hoi three times within two weeks

You can keep sending notes, letters, scribbles, post-its, lists, a jewel jam of genres

You can be incomplete, strangely stuck, untogether, a fumbling work-in-progress, just like about 5 billion others of our species

You can seek refuge amid my persiflage, crème brûlée, and recitations of Paul Éluard

You can throw away that mask that flashes: “I’ve Got It All Figured Out”

You can relax when you arrive back home: In the precious present moment


-- Our Heroic and Ceaseless 24/7 Struggle against Tsuris