The first hippie, the original sweaty-toothed madman shouted seething, laughed and leaped and frightened America. You knew how to get turned on and tell people about it, without a trace of shame. Nothing you did had shame in it because it was all just being human.

I bet you died smiling. If God let you come back, I'm sure he let you come back as something really good. But that's silly I know because for you there would have been no bad options, nothing you did not want to be. You will always be limitless scrawls in my mind, fresh dark wet ink scrawls. I read your words and I want to be everybody and everything. I want to yell in all the ways there are to yell, even the quiet ones. I want to live my whole life outside.

I was at the beach and I saw high-school boys playing in the surf and I watched them until it occurred to me who I had become. The boys did not know it. They were just being beautiful, and I got to watch. I will always adore you for knowing how much fun it can be simply to be here and to keep your eyes open and to dig whatever you dig and to make it all true to the core.

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