her voice is soft

Walking around, as if a slimy thing

Out of its shell. Take a breath of

That steep air. With this – a defiled

Gait, and liquid pouring through

Parched fingers, this is the way.

A pale jawline pointed at the sky,

Birds chirp as a gentle chastisement

For all the sins forgotten and left in

Hollow and fillable footprints. Never

Be free of the vast expanse; making

The effort to travel a little further, a

Little more lost with no way back.

“This is the way.”Nothing flowed as

Quiet as it did then, like order spilt

All around. Detached. Sitting at the

Bottom of an optical illusion, far inside

The doorstep. The ceiling was made of

Fake linoleum, sturdy enough for

Its uses. Melting with no more fight

Left. Waiting for the calendar to tell

The pillow to wake up now. Now is

The time to begin – as if all of that

Baggage got forgotten by some clumsy

Porter two stations back. Morning mist,

A greeting with all of its well-meaning –

Keep moving forward. Off the path,

Into a desert with the crawling things.

Up the slope made of twigs and things

Protruding from the soil, further into

The colours with no name and no

Desire to pave the way with a different

Shade of bark, there is where sweat lies.

Still motion rooftop, an irregular shade

Of blue, always finding a new artist to

Paint the same thing without the rigid

Museum audience getting bored. And

Somewhere, at the fabled end of the

Pilgrimage is the place we rest our

Head. Only a stepping stone to another,

To never do the same thing again,

Just because repetition is boring. This,

This has been established by those

Whose occupation is agreeableness.

Where circles make up the subconscious,

And air is not air until it is air, shoveled

Out of the parched ground, there is a way

Down, where it is proper to stay until the

Mist, in its smothered constancy, even forgot

Its well-meaning, too. The slimy thing

didn’t make it very far, did it?

“No, this is the way.”