"Man is born free, and everywhere he is in blockchains.”

– Jim O’Neill, friend, poet, and Managing Director of Mithril Capital Management LLC

Adrift (2018), by Henrik Uldalen

Let the blood orange sun of this evening Drip like an egg yolk to ooze Plasma down my open throat; Smolder through my veins, Pump through my chest, once Brim-searing with your colors and textures–– Disturbed as I am with dreams where I Drag my teeth along your lower back And peel you like a clementine, Squeezing your ripe juice From a thick slice into a bath— Thick as I am with dreams Of days when I could still smell you, Back when I could take you Inside of me with a nostril, Back when my nostrils Could differentiate each your scents, Back when I—

Ah–– do you mind if I take this? Sorry, let me just complete this column. Sorry, I’m running late for my morning ritual. Sorry, do you have any scale of snake or tongue of toad To make my sense of smell erode? Foot of dog or spleen of moose To cleanse me of this sticky juice? Gleam of eye or pound of pulse To let this burning chest emulse With surveys, staples, deadlines, Slack Until it cools and soon I lack The things which made me start this all––

Oh, fuck it: Come, you spirits That tend on useful thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full Of efficiency! Make thin my blood With Five Hour Energy! Grind the knife Of my focus against a stone Until its precision lets me blur the edges Of my vision and cleave through spreadsheets, Analytics, APIs, Adwords, Customer relationship management systems, And SWOT analyses which enable optimization of KPIs for Business-to-business software-as-a-service multichannel licensing solutions promoting over 2,400 retweets per instant and–– ! Ah––the alarm which marks this Pomodoro over; Perhaps I'll circle back on poems when sober, In the third quarter of 2019, Since now it’s time to make my code clean With debugging––

Deep breath in [Breath] And breath out the tension in your temples.

Breath in your sacred memories [Breath] And breath out global nuclear war.

Breath in your Holy Cross [Breath] And breath out the suffering of wild animals.

Breath in your song to beauty [Breath] And breath out through hell on earth, through the woman you saw in the underpass on the way to Lake Merritt Market, her eyes confused and swimming, her clothes dirty and hanging, her feet and her teeth jutted in separate angles as she shambles toward you and Nevin, her sign saying nothing but “Help Me,” no instructions, no affordances, her mouth mouthing “Help,” but unable to tell you how, and she already knows that no one will stop for her–– Breath in through this too [Breath] And breath out through the task ahead.

Breath in the evening sun. Breath out through efficiency. Breath in a baby’s small hand wrapped around your finger. Breath out the updating of your LinkedIn profile. Breath in your love for this world. Breath out through fundraising. And know that it is your test to make these bind.