Needs (aphorisms)

1. Spring rains need to stop. We need cold blue skies and turbulent white clouds, and most of all, we need wind.

2. We need 15 seconds of deep breathing with our eyes closed.

3. We need #2 in hammocks.

4. Coffee is good, but sometimes we need decaf.

5. Someone driving by with his window open should play heartbreaking music we'll never hear again. We need that.

6. We need to stop watching our thoughts dart around like tireless dragonflies.

7. We need to stop shaking like puppies in the pound whenever someone lays a hand on us gently. We can't stop that until we leave the pound. How do we leave the pound?

8. The night should be black and silent. We need to sit beneath the weight of silence and empty space.

9. If a solitary car growls, it should echo like a tiger in the trees, and then fade to silence again.

10. We need to shiver.

11. When we undress for bed, we should examine our own nipples until they stretch out like flower pollen waiting for the bees.

12. We need to unlock the memories of our monkey ancestors. Then we'll remember what we forgot, and cry.

13. We need to feel fireworks in our wrists and knees, until everything becomes like melting gold and love.

14. When we swim in the lake, we need to feel intense gratitude to the cool pebbles under our toes and the lip of water around our necks and the strings of wet hair falling over our eyes and the beads on our cheeks and the sun.

15. We should feel intense gratitude to the warmth of the water when we shower. We need scratchier towels.

16. Books need to be kissed and fondled.

17. We need to find the speakers and flip the output/input switch. Somewhere in the rainforests of South America or the ice sheets of Antarctica is a shortwave radio from the farthest point in the cosmos. We need to listen.

18. When the air is mild, we must open the windows and make love. When the air is hot or cold, we must fuck.

19. The moon is a woman who was turned to stone. She can't be reanimated and she can't even crumble away. When we see her, we need to remember.

20. We need to smile sadly when we see people walking earnestly towards their futures with hope and pain on their faces, and we should cry privately when they are too old to walk anymore.

21. If we don't make babies, we need to take the world as our baby. If we do make babies, we need to take the world as our baby's brother.

22. When people are foolish, evil, disgusting, rude, cynical, filthy, obstinate, greedy, and selfish, we need to study the grass.

23. There are too many suffering creatures to imagine all the time. The weight of them would break our backs. But we should never turn away from what we see.

24. We need to be harmless.

25. We need to learn astral projection.

26. We need to sift warm sand through our fingers until the only thing we can think is warm sand, fingers.

27. Bodies are galaxies. Orgasm is the big bang.

28. If possible, we should discover how to make love to spirits and gods.

29. Sleeping people need to be kissed without ever knowing it.

30. We need to hold on gently and we need to let go.