The film is silent, but I can almost hear her laughing. I can almost hear the ocean coming in.

2. I moved into a small room by the freeway. I am far from the ocean. On a still day, I can almost hear dry grass burning in the foothills. It's so hot in this room. Or it's so cold. I jack off and come on the kitchen curtains--while crying.

3. She is a woman of many oceans. The wind always favors her hair. She has seen all the best airports. The letters became postcards. And the postcards became empty mailboxes.

4. I walk along the soundwall in the late afternoon. The freeway sounds just like the ocean. But the ocean never wrecked itself. The afternoon wrecks itself; the wreckage is a sick patch of sunlight shining between my shadow's legs as we walk to the liquor store.

5. I'll never be man enough to be the man she loves.

6. You will, if you're lucky, establish a rapport with the liquor store clerk. He will let you linger inside his store after you purchase your bottles. He'll tell you about the wife and kids he left somewhere over many seas. He's working on bringing them here. And you can tell him about the life you left behind in the sunny driveways of your childhood. Tell him how you committed suicide in thin slats of dust one late afternoon before you were ever old enough to know better. Then, when it's dark outside, you can go sit on a parking block in the parking lot. Sit under the streetlight and drink one beer after another. Drink until the moths don't make you sad anymore.

7. I'm so tired of losing you to the weekend. So tired of losing you to thick-chested men in sportscars. I've got my binoculars and have been scanning the green prairies and foothills, wondering where you ran off to and how long you will be gone. Come on, tell me: how long is forever?

8. Watching old film clips until they run out. Then staring into my hands until they close. Drink and masturbate myself to sleep.

9. Wake up in an empty swimming pool on Saturday morning. I have an appointment at a beachside record store. I would be scared if I wasn't so bored. I'd be dead if I wasn't so scared.

10. I wrote this one by light of the bottle. Please tell me there's a light to enter. Please, dear imaginary reader? Please tell me there's something real to be found. Because I want. I want.