i had met brilliance when i was thawing from january’s cruel winter kisses and had nooses in my drawers. i met brilliance in the absence of it and bought flowers for our stupidity and they died a few days later but that was okay because i had brilliance and the flowers had sensibility. i met brilliance under lamp posts and in parking lots and in the way my nose dripped blood. i loved brilliance like labor loves the worker - which is to say i was paid in dreams and an early grave. i have not seen brilliance since it melted away from summer heat and when i look at where brilliance once was i am met with a ghost. it seems brilliance had died with trust and a rhapsode somewhere in the mountains to the east - so if you see her ask her who the killer was for i’d rather brilliance have been murdered than to have died of it’s own accord.