this is how the draining of rain sounds

listen to a slow plodding sound.  footsteps on a pine needle forest floor.  sloe gin clouds fuzzing by, blurring the atmosphere with amorphous movement.  it was me pressing through the syrup of days, all dried out and looking. breathing steam rising up hairy.  taste the way that it moves like grass growing down your tongue and through your throat.  but this will never do.

Run. run through the next frame.  Plod no more as you search and search and let it go while your fingers blur and the toes can barely grip a thought before you're landing on the next.  there's a lightness that comes from moving this quickly like an outstripping of the thoughts that hold us down, a blur that others can't pin, a sound that's too loud to hear by those who think rationally.  running quickly and out of control we laugh down the hillside as the ground turns over our heads and the rocks and soil leave their mark on skin that's torn and ragged.  but even though our teeth fall out and our tongues dry up it doesn't matter as our spirit slips free from confinement.

it feels like chocolate chip cookies in here.
and my knee hitches.

No-Where Man

and so it was that he truly was a No-Where Man who didn't have friends to lose or places he recognized.  It had been a long time and the ground had cracked as the weeds tangled with the words withered and died leaving them to bake in the nowhere space that didn't exist unless you found it.  But with these few drops of water seeping down to kiss the legs of plants buried deep in the sand-dust colored life began to seep again.

Trundled through snow into staircases warm with life the No-Where Man stirred up his own emotions.  This was once a place where my shadow chased me down three flights of stairs pursued by me into the lamp light.  This was where the door had slammed in my face when I had made my one attempt to seek human contact, where my attempt had failed, where I'm not even sure if the door had opened since I'm pretty sure that I hadn't knocked.  Shut doors slammed the loudest.

Yes it's happening all over again the rampant overgrowth of the undergrowth swallowing all consciousness and leaving only its form to bear on the wasteland of untraveled distances.  Where thousands of survivors stood up and looked around wondering what had knocked them down, where trees fell into the oblivious.  Will you print this out and frame it on  your wall?  I didn't think so.  Will you take this down and use it for shoes?  Because where will this take you when the leader is led by the fingers in the mud?

Yes it's fitting to end on the questions that so often make their appearance when wandering.  Questions that lead to nowhere.  Questions left behind unanswered like bread crumbs that no bird will eat by the No-Where Man.  Listen, you can hear him tip tapping his way among the lettered.  Remembrances of plastic and the smell of PVC molded into representations.  There's that feeling again as the fuzzy notes trill three times down and up, over and over again.

This was the No-Where Man peeking out through the curtains to make sure that the theater was empty, that the flood lights were off, that the room was cold and bare, removed of seats and rows before making the first leap out onto the stage and dancing his lightest steps in elegance only he could bear.  The applause was felt loudly through the muscles that hadn't exercised in years as every fiber smiled.