I want to be nothing, but every time I turn around, there I am. You can shut your doors and window blinds, but there is still something happening out there. There were daffodils along the fenceline once. I keep saying: there is no such thing as “autobiography.” There was a grove near the creek up Buttermilk Bridge Road where I would nap in the afternoon. Maybe I mean every story is one story. I could read today’s news, but yesterday’s news did me in; I am one day older and one day stupider. When the women in the family die, the men just let their flowerbeds wither and go to weed. Some people live in the universe, some in the multiverse. As kids, we’d dare one another to eat dandelions. I want to keep the window blinds shut, but the cats in the house are getting bored. So humid today, cicadas wake, shed their shells, croak their ugly songs.

Bio: Paul-Victor Winters