On the 4th of July this year, I drank 6 cups of coffee (5 french-pressed hot, one iced.) I read part of a book that was borrowed and part of one that I helped steal. I was wearing stripes but no stars when we stole it. There was an ornament hanging above the toilet in the house where I was staying that was a fat middle-aged mermaid wearing sunglasses. The people that surrounded me were all very amenable to trickery, mischief, and games– my favorite kind of people to be around during holidays. I rediscovered that my small Heart is actually large for an Apple. Today, on the 5th of July, I ate a banana for the first time in a long time. Shooting the moon is difficult. Below my eyes, some of the capillaries have inexplicably popped like red fireworks on a heat of white lighning.* The red car took us back to the grey house. In an hour, things will be lively again. Now August-bound darkness has just fallen.

*Heat lightning is a misnomer for the faint flashes of lightning on the horizon or other clouds from distant thunderstorms that do not have accompanying sounds of thunder.