I don’t mean to be no trouble, but I am thinking of dyin.
He sat across from me, sipping his percolated coffee with one or three too many fistfuls of coffee thrown in “for good measure”. If you were to believe the tall tales he tells, he uses an old sock to filter out the biggest of the grounds, but I think that’s probably bullshit. Or it might not be bullshit and I’m just hoping that it is at least a clean old sock he uses for the purpose.
(more…)They never mention it in books, of course. The travel guides, I mean. They never tell you just how far you can, on average, walk in a pair of shoes before they start to fall apart. Of course, not all shoes are built the same and there’s going to be some variability in how well they will wear, but I’ve found you can maybe walk five hundred miles on fairly even asphalt in a pair of sneakers before you might want to keep your eyes open for your next pair. Boots meant for hiking? Maybe twice that, but you had better not rely on there being any tread to give you traction that last two hundred miles, give or take. Still, boots are my go-to, though they tend to weigh you down more at the end of the day than something more athletic.
Of course, you’re rarely given the choice of boots or sneakers while on the drift. More often than not, you have to accept what you come across and, obviously, the mileage on a worn pair of footwear is significantly lowered.
But beggars can’t be choosers, as my gran would say.
(more…)I will drift the forest behind blind eyes with her, just as she came, here on the new moon this morn. A new year, come ten days on the loom, rides her night tresses too. Time to wrap root and gather low, gather deep, and gather below. Gather, then, and keen no more.
If you knew me, you would understand — but I stand alone, unknown. I am wing and I am thorn, that is the best I can explain.
But when she comes, we gather: wrapping root and pricking low.
I travel long distances without leaving my home.
This is truth.
I pull the hood over my head, cover my eyes and I am back on the road, blacktop beneath my soles, blackthorn in my hand, tall pines doused in their pungent cologne, rising tall and casting everything shadow.
This is truth
Blacktop fades to gravel fades to black dirt stained grey and the birch draw closer, birds talking from the broad reeds, powder puff cattails and rushes green. Giving directions. Giving meaning.
This is truth.
Feeling gravities pull to gloaming space, I ramble on.
This is truth.
Wandering the daydream, with all the accompanying mists and the fey voices just out of earshot in those mists; a forest of lingering like a wraith waiting for the gloaming of nightfell — such is the path I flow.
Weary of trying to find connection, I feel the tug of something less even than byways. And, giving in, twin feet shamble towards the briar and thorns to follow on the stones to sacrifice of both eyes. The words are liars, near all, so we toss them to the underbrush and let them return to mud.
This is my lonely and I feel possessive of it in the way the chill of fresh-fallen snow stings skin to pleasure as two bare hands mould it into shape. I do not think I can share it, and I would never dare to give it away. It is far too precious.
Turn away, just as the guitar peals the last banshee cries into night. We are like as not, unforgiven.