I'm awake, but not really alert. Anything could snatch me, the ruling or the folly. Uncontrollable drifting. And I'm painting, painting for Goya. Thinking of the dark trails winding off the Earth and twisting, bending swiftly into innumerable corners, drifting into a sleep of reason deeper than the surface, perfect in the benign indifference of the picture, straying from harsh human thought. I'm following, following a light trying to make out the depths in the shadows before me. Trying not to slip into them. Trying not to let them consume me, break my bones, cut my ankles, my shins, Achilles. I'm listening, listening carefully to my feet crunching under me, not knowing the surfaces they are touching but the fantastic mind produces the image based off sound bites over years of memory. Still, the unknown shadows jump out at me. Will I fall off the edge of the mighty force that shot itself from the crusts years before I dared stroke her spine. Is this the reference of the ageless time I let pass between me and the rest of the world. I can't breath, but I'll climb with rusty muscles to this rocky corridor and take in the impending light. Even then, I won't crumple. And still, scraping the edges of these great cliffs at the close, eyes glazed staring out the train's window, I can feel the home of this winter cold. I can feel the warmth in these impoverished homes. I can feel the rise and fall of the lungs of the animals in the pastures. I can feel the almost frozen soil in its gentle rolling nature over these mountains, giving these courageous people the food they have earned. And when I watch the sun fall over the valleys of this diverse and absolute place, turning to purples in the mountains and reds over the rolling crops, I feel this sense of calm rush over my eyes and in my heart, everything is functioning just fine.

“I cried over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts.

The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of the copper sunburned woman,
the mother of the year, the taker of seeds.

The northwest wind comes and the yellow is torn full of holes, new beautiful things
come in the first spit of snow on the northwest wind, and the old things go,

not one lasts."
~Carl Sandburg, "Autumn Movement"

Chase after my night
Free me from the light
your starlight
Echoing
Frantically contagious virus of light
slither through me
drag me through time.
Take me, unending river
crawl against the lathered road
feel to midnight entering
Thrust me through
carry me through
drag me through time.

Stepping forward into an abyss...

I'm driving in the middle of the night windows down and sweeter jazz pumping from my speakers, as if I were racing towards those musicians, I could find them if I drove faster and faster yet. In dream fields opening in my mind I find I'm the one racing through time. There's no relevance of it, see, there's an open road running and running and I'm this mirage of speed and pure unavoidable ecstasy. Keep driving, keep pumping into me, thrust up from underneath me and steal my breath away. I'm thinking of a place I want to be and I put myself back there, rewind to the exact same moment, open my eyes and let my hair fall down and crash like cotton waves over the sides of my bare body. Yes I'm free in these arms and draped in neon sheets that wait with me oh so patiently. Yes I am free, discover this last world with me, feel it, heart keep pumping into me fight against this emptiness, against the odds we faced from the beginning, against those goddamn humming hoards of drowning figures with their painkillers and useless ivy league degrees draped over their shoulders as they shovel shit for beans. Fight here with me, against my body. Fight here with me, against my racing veins and coming down in time to meet the rhythm of your wind stroked eyes. Because I loved the smell of that soul next to mine, that I could get close for minutes in sublime powers and please oh pleas of crying exasperation and evaporation into the flying sails I knew were not mine. Oh but the time, it was fine with your weight over mine and I felt for moments so everlastingly able to face wrath of a hundred herds of angry wild horses that would beat over my body whispering one thousand things unkind. How I wanted every moment to be mine, to be able to come and find you when I grew hungry and needed to feel the climb. But now I'm driving in this lonely desert at night and I find no signs , I'm lost forever in time. Just this meager memory who floats away. I made no mistake in that I'm stepping forward into an abyss and I'm setting myself on fire. The weight of the beautiful soul inside you will reach higher than I can ever know, that I feel, that one thing I inherently know. I'm stepping forward into an abyss and I'm setting myself on fire.

I keep thinking about waking up in the desert of Peru. It wasn't ideal, being that it was a night on a bus and although I'm only twenty, my joints and back get sore just as they would at an older age. But for some odd reason there was something invigorating about that bus ride in the morning dawn. I felt the lighting through the misted windows so I wiped them as best I could with my hand to uncover a sunrise I won't forget. It was quiet, I think I was the first passenger to wake in the scene of the fog setting in over these mountainous dunes that the road winded through. I remember thinking of how beautifully empty that part of the world is. I remember looking around at the people sleeping and wondering about their families, their work, their opinions, their dreams, how peaceful they are. I looked back out the window. I'm so far away today. Sometimes I lay awake at night and think about random snips of time where I had at the moment they were made, been deep in thought, it's like suddenly being awake in them again. If only I could live in them.

Dear Diary,
I'm afraid I am gravely ill. It is perhaps times like these that one reflects on things past. An article of clothing from when I was young, a green jacket. A walk with my father. A game we once played. Pretend we're faeries. I'm a girl faerie. My name is Laura Lee. And you're a boy faerie and your name is Tita Lee. Pretend, when we're faeries we fight each other, and I say, "Stop hitting me, I'll die!" And you hit me again and I say, "Now I have to die." and then you say, "But I'll miss you." And I say, "But I have to. And you'll have to wait a million years to see me again. And I'll be put in a box, and all I'll need is a tiny glass of water and lots of tiny pieces of pizza and the box will have wings like an airplane." And you'll ask, "Where will it take you?"
"Home." I say.
--Synecdoche, New York
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8BgFTR4PjQ&feature=feedf