So lis­ten,

It’s 12:30 am. I spent the last hour toss­ing and turn­ing in my bed, lis­ten­ing to the scur­ry­ing feet of the cock­roaches, try­ing to fall asleep. But sleep won’t come. There is­n’t a sin­gle thread of sleep in my body to lull me.

I can’t stop think­ing about her. Any time I find my­self slip­ping off, the im­age of her smil­ing that daz­zling smile ap­pears out of nowhere and sets my heart rac­ing again. I re­mem­ber the line I’d read in a poem by Neruda, “the night, so im­mense, is still more im­mense with­out her.” It cer­tainly is, mae­stro, it cer­tainly is.