Five Paragraph Essay

There are moments when you crowd close to the computer screen like a moth to a scorching light bulb: surely the end of the uncertainty is here, there, somewhere; the moment when the runners and the tracks will line up, and the door will open smooth and sweet to

Summer, remember summer? She stuck her tongue out just as you were trying to kiss her, rude sun and cold water and the trees seesawing in the wind. You could get through if you just remembered the password,

But the problem is not that you don't remember the password, it's that you remember scores of them, maybe hundreds of them, and your fingers remember more. Ease back, ease back, you poor tired old pack horse. After a life a of carrying, what is one more fall and winter? For every weakness

There is an equal and opposite strength in your swift fingers. You know more than you know you know, lad, and the arc traced even by a winter sun can drag you skyward before you know it. Give it up now. Line up these talismans: sun agate, penny of a cowrie shell, missing turquoise sea glass, plastic "I love you" valentine (drowning in a crystal sea.) Each of them taught you something you had to know, something that even now you tell over when

The blood begins to make too much noise in your head, late at night. There is a place of rest; there is turn; there is a landing, however rough. Don't try to see too far ahead. Take an easy breath, and peel the shell away from your aching head: it will be tender, like all new things, and sensitive to sunlight, but what did you expect?