Like stones, I collect them. This one is large, and the surface pocked and rough. Another one gleams beneath the dust. Some are weighty, others sharp and flat.

I can make things from the words, like stones. Here a wall, there a buttress, now and again a road, straight and smooth, paved with the justso stones it needs to take you places you never knew before.

And yet,

And yet,

There I toil, in the sun and the dust, building a careful palace, building whole cities, while you sit by the lake and watch the view.

Sometimes you take up a stone, and you skip it across the water, sparkling and defying gravity before it disappears, traceless, leaving nothing behind.

No matter how I practise, my stones just sink.