A vampire, bloody and bloodless, I drove a wooden stake in scorched and fertile ground, a conflagration of contradictions, I know.
I wound a rope to my ankle, bound my wrists with cuffs, and marched. Being shitty at geometry, I returned to where I started. Which one is half of the other, I deliberated. Circumference or diameter? Why can't I get that right? I’ll blame it on my school teacher, and I still hear her cawing through the fog to this day.
Now the wind kicked up and spoke. To me. The sinuous, obedient grass climbed to my waist. I am in. I am out. Above. Below. Halved. Whole.
Always stay in the fight.
Do not go quietly.
The sum is you plus you and me, son.
Again, with the math, hawks became doves and became hawks again. Despondent I sunk, and up I stood, loved, and downhearted I fell again, and upright I was, adored, and I became one with all things—recognized and nameless—just like that, and the Father I mislaid sat near, wholly me and wholly him, and placed a hand on my shoulder and said this:
Always stay in the fight.
Do not go quietly.
The sum is you plus you and me, son.
I now languish in transient smoke and rejoice on solid land, a fraction, a total.
No stake.
No rope.