ALT The cover of Sampson Starkweather’s chapbook Slip on the Ski Mask of Night

ALT List of Demands all we want is life a boss-less world a cosmic commons all the animals and people set free our souls (bought and sold) given back the land given back the planet resuscitated respected nourished loved to be able to breathe

ALT all we ask is for everything and more

ALT HUMAN ACHIEVEMENTS this morning I woke up, and I only wanted to tell the truth. like, last night was a total error in judgement; I am mismanaging my life. I’d hire a replacement if one should apply. there are two girls inside me that have been killed. nonviolently snuffed out by persistent doubt and reckless influence. I am taking my laptop into the tub, I am going to write a letter. to my father, I will say, forget the medals, I went for medals. this letter becomes a book titled Continual Failure and Disappointment; my editor will rename it, Human Achievements. my father will say, the gold, the gold, but really delights in the calculated leap. I stay quiet and swing low. swing low until the sun sets, and I feel free.

ALT Sometimes, like right now, when snow has muted the world, I can hear the sound of your sadness, a small bird flailing in the grass, one wing making a useless music, and sometimes circumstance is the victim. There are certain silences only those who have suffered can know, what Coleridge called “the secret ministries of frost.” They make a lake between us, an untouchable body. Misunderstanding is more than a language we've mastered — it’s a life. This will go on until there is no more ground between us, until we're entwined in incessant falling. Things break. This is the first law of any beauty. Gravity. The way islands are made. I am the list of things you will break. I'm not really trying to tell you anything; I just wanted you to hear the sound of being alone, oh yeah, and the snow is deep and bright.