I don’t know if you’ve noticed but there is a topic I usually touch upon, either acutely or obliquely, in everything I write. Okay, not just my writing but you’re getting ahead of me, impatient reader. And whatever you just wanted to say but didn’t…I’m on to you. Pffffft. Shame on you.

Or is it by the world being this way that inspires me to color in the empty spaces with the only paint available? No matter the concentration of ammonia it contains?

I don’t know if I’ll ever figure that out and it’s probably not a problem I’m meant to solve.

I do know that as I thrash and splash my streaky, often-dirty, somewhat naive, occasionally hopeful but usually jaded, color on the great canvas of life, there’s no doubt at some point, I’ll be dangling by my foot, resigned and familiar, halfway down some home-rigged scaffolding made of old crutches and rubber cement, pleading for a neighbor, security guard, passer-by, some Goddamn person, to come and untangle me.

-NTZ