What’s more fun than making poems, songs, stories, and collages? Making mixes. I still call them mix tapes, though I make more mix CDs since I got my first car with a CD player two years ago. Spacemen 3 have a great album called The Perfect Prescription, and that title alone provides a good metaphor for how the right mix tape can alter/enhance/improve my mood, my mental state, my entire outlook on the world. I’d rather set out on a long road trip with a quarter tank of gas than an inadequate supply of mixes. (Just as, when presented with that horrible hypothetical question: “would you rather go deaf or blind,” my answer would have to be blind… because… music.) Among my prized possessions are mix tapes friends have made for me, even—especially—after they start to get warped with overplay, too much rewinding. Sure, I enjoy the random surprises offered by a shuffle-listening session (drawing from the thousands of songs on my computer’s hard drive and backup drives) as much as the next 21st century music fan. But I will never stop making—and hopefully receiving—curated mixes for as long as I can still hear. Can prose poems capture the vibe of my favorite musical collages? The perfect segues and unexpected twists? Bold moves and experiments: tried and true favorites next to brand new discoveries? Probably not, but it certainly was fun to try, to prescribe myself an extra heavy dose of Mix Tape dBs, and it gave me the best possible excuse for revisiting the wow and flutter of old friends.