text: It’s 2:25am. He lies naked on the lounge. The leather creaks with each subtle movement. His gaze fixed at the false horizon created by the dark railing on his balcony. The dimly lit night sky above, and the street light, an oversized star shining below. It’s unpleasant to his eye - the sharpness of the artificial light stings. His gaze shifts above the new found horizon. A thin cloud covers the ordinarily visible stars. The arch of the palm branches etch their form into the sky. Swaying. Gentle. Oversized brush bristles, limp and nearly dead. Gray in the daylight, but indeterminable to him now. He knows they are dead, but for now they move, a choreographed dance of nature. The calm after the storm. The full moon keeps him up. Every full moon. This full moon in particular. Always strange thoughts - his mind started blue in the morning - vivid and rich. Now, the saturation of colour has dulled and it’s as gray and troubled as the palm branch he watches. Darker still. Racing. No mind, never mind, minding its own business. The cloud has passed. He can see the stars once more. But really only one. An off-white, red stained shimmer. He watches. The vibration of light hits his senses. He feels the star. Vibrating. Stop vibrating - it’s too much. It’s gone. The clouds roll over it - the fragility of night. An ever changing canvas, the creation and destruction of beautiful moments, none the same, but mostly all familiar. He looks below the horizon once more. The streetlight is still absurdly bright. Sitting on top of a hill, he can see where others live.. He wonders why so many have their lights on. What are they doing? Should be sleeping. He wishes he was sleeping. The curse of a perturbed mind - a Jackson Pollock thought train. Incomplete sentences, incongruent senses and a strange feeling that he can’t shake. There are fingerprints on the glass door. Tiny hand prints. His son. The youngest one. A perfect hand print. It will never be this small again. An instant captured. Soon to be erased by the doctrine of tidiness. Must clean the windows. They are smudged. Oily. The branches are lifeless. They haven’t moved in minutes. Has the painting stopped changing? He looks closely. They’ve stopped. Long white lines stretch and collapse like elastic bands from the streetlight - his eyes playing tricks. They stretch right to his chest. He moves his eyes. The rays of white lines move and warp and splay. They seem to originate from the small halo that wraps the source of light. When will they turn them off? They aren’t needed tonight - the full moon is keeping the streets awake with light. Not dark. St. Petersburg white nights at 10pm, at 3am. Never dark, never light. Just so. It’s too quiet. No cars have passed. His thoughts flood in his internal storm. Rapid river. White rapids. Powerful waterfall. Waiting for the rain to stop. The thoughts will stop once the storm passes. The paradox. A quiet, impossibly calm night and a distrubed, uneasy and restless mind. He fears loss. He never fears loss. All of his uneasiness trying to reconcile this feeling. It’s foreign and it presses into his chest. He doesn’t like it. It’s physical and conflicting. He’s not enough. Not enough for anyone. Just enough. Never enough. He asks very little of others, but feels so much is asked of him. He wonders if that’s fair - does he really not ask much of others?. He just wants to be left alone sometimes. When he’s alone he wants to be held. Yet another contrast of his personality - fuck off, but stay with him - sliently. Just don’t ask anything of him. A pet. Show affection, but don’t ask anything of him. He begs. “Please don’t want anything other than to be present with me”. In the quiet. Silence. Just humans holding each other. Without clocks or watches or distractions. Until he’s done. That’s what he asks. That’s all he asks. Once in a while - just love him, even if only for an instant.