Imagine dark nights, wandering down lost midwestern back roads, looking at the stars to guide your way. Rows of corn and scarecrows, orchards lined with apple trees. Imagine baren interstate highways full of overturned cars, some ablaze, with little sprinkles of glass spread across the road. Factories blazing. Lush forests growing around huge cities; the air so thick and fresh it swells up in your lungs, and precipitation that clings to the trees and floor-to-ceiling windows of highrise buildings. Deer roaming through grocery stores. A managery of animals bred from zoos finding their way through casinos and museums. Hunting elk and boar through alleyways and fire stations. Redecorating monuments and playing tag through airports and theme parks. Airplanes laying in piles of twisted metal on the runways. Fervent sex in the playpin at McDonalds. Making love on the bank of some beach, the infinite array of stars dotting the blanket of black in the backdrop, full clouds dipping down, and the vanilla orb moon lingering over you. Your bare feet against grass and hard-packed dirt, running through mile-long wheat fields with flocks of birds hovering over you. Huge island mountains, carpeted with emerald green grass and bushes that swell and dip until they stretch into the horizon. An orange and gold sun casting a reflection onto the sparkling fresh ocean. Vines as thick as your arms and flowers with a million brilliant colors wrap the marble columns of the White House. You can sleep in subway cars, the Capital building, the Hoover building, in executive offices, or the bed of the Grand Canyon, running out into the skyline with desert and rock. I can run my hands through your hair, cup your face, and kiss you. I love the way you taste. I can envision damp cellars and bar basements soaked with sweat and testoserone, encompased by firered brick, full of men fighting bare-knuckle. Broken collar bones and ribs. Blood stained clothing and ruffled hair. I see snow covering the ground up north, and hoards of people holding each other nestled in blankets, crowding hospitals and shopping malls to keep each other warm. Climbing gigantic oak trees in the summer time. The shade covering small dirt roads, like a scene from some simplistic 1950's southern town.

Alkaline dust beating against the windows of low-rent homes, rolling hills of sun-bleached grass and laundry hanging out to dry. I have these images of a dead midwestern America with all of the appliances still left on, televisions still running dots of static through the household, and the wind, sharp and heavy, beating against the thin panes of glass in the window frame. I can see the sky melting like an oil-based painting across the canvas. Outside, the colors coagulate and drip into the sea below. I can see the moon glowing and cutting through the stratus clouds that stretch across the midnight skyline.

A haze of aurora borealis that lights up the city.