do you think a dandelion seed knows where it will land before it sprouts? do you think it has a preference? do you think it has control? of course each dandelion is unique but they all exist in this world and they came here somehow. is it thought that begets creation? is it something so predictable? or is it a niggling feeling to be scratched? a download from the universe. does the artist know the final product? does the big bang recognize every last one of its abrupt creations? does god recognize me? 4.5 billion years after eve. when i speak to you i speak in spaces. when we all speak the wind catches our thoughts carrying them just a few feet before they disperse into nothing. if i hear you or you hear me it might stick until we grow old and forget like how these words in my brain will cease to exist in centuries’ time replaced by new ones as language doesn’t run around but runs amok like a chicken with its head cut off always fixin’ ta find the perfect way to spill the tea over a cup of tea that will forever and always inevitably leave a drop. because we are imperfect beings. and the art i make to be remembered will likely one day be misremembered for better or for worse. but enjoy it nonetheless and separate me from the neurons bursting in my mind if you must. the breaths i take between expression do you think they know what comes after? do you think words are just the universe trying to remember itself? that each piece of art is a reminder of how we all feel? that i have the same downloads as the first single-cell organism? that 4.5 billion years on a spinning ball spinning around a spinning sun in a spinning galaxy sends our thoughts flying through time and space so that just at the right moment someone will catch it and say, “Ah! do you think—”