I’ve had picnics on planets with no oxygen.  Spent hours dancing with souls long deceased.  I’ve smoked cannabis with two of the three wise men.   And each morning I wake up excited for the next journey. 

When I write, I double knot my shoes.  Deep in underworlds, or soaring with eagles is no time to fuss with a loose shoe lace.  Open your eyes to the sting of the salty ocean and see how deep you can dive.  Run until time folds in on itself.  Scream at strangers and fight your way through airport security.  The authorities can’t have this world.

For this world belongs to my pen.  It belongs to my keyboard and my cramping hands as they play drum solos over the keys.  When I write, I grab tigers by the tail, then spit in their face with they turn to attack.  I’ve summoned Kurt Cobain, Bob Marley, and Ella Fitzgerald to sing happy birthday.  Muzzled the Big Bad Wolf and asked him politely to blow out the candles.

This is my world.  I’ve ridden in business-class boxcar seats on all seven continents.  It wasn’t Eve who ate the apple, it was me.  I was hungry from a long day tilling the Garden of Eden.  Save your vacation days, call in sick, close the blinds and write a letter to your mother.  Tell her you’ve had enough of the rat race.  Then tell her what the inside of a blue whale looks like.  Describe to her what it feels like to heat your food on a spit over an active volcano. 

When your letter’s complete, crumble it up and swallow it.  Splash water on your face and dance because you’ve eaten more worlds than the Decepticons.  Then write a second draft.  This time address it to yourself.  Apologize for waiting so long, for wasting time watching reruns when you could have had front row seats to world wars. 

Let gravity determine how the words fall on the page.  If you don’t like them, rearrange.  Stir them like the cryptic symbols in your bowl of lucky charms, tilt the page to your lips and drink the milk.  Then take that letter and make it into a paper airplane.  Set in on fire and throw it toward Saturn’s rings.  Now go inside and watch the orbit from your bedroom window. 

Write the third draft in blood.  Carve it into your neck with a broken pencil and pour coffee in the open wounds.  This will help you remember to always write.  It will wake you up in the morning and give you energy before bed.  This is your world.  Write it into existence.