Clearing a toil on top, on a metal sheet, taps the stampede of little feet. My feet. Driving two miles, the nails in a cement block that shatters unexpectedly, causing nervous face conditions on the skin. Too long to await another period of self-containment.

 

        Crap crap crap. I escape destruction too often. Looking forward to a few delights that never arrive. Promises not delivered. Left on the doorstep, if at all, cold and worn by someone before me.

 

        Shells, paper dolls are a haven. Stationery turns yellow. Blank signals mark the coming of the new blank thoughts. Hide a sheet. Find a pillow. Make yourself comfortable on a hassock as if to watch some TV. I picked a flower from her garden. The whole bed died.

 

        A glass of water sipped tastes good in the mouth after carnivorously chewing the insides to bleeding. It tastes good all but salt and catsup. Mortal wounds inflicted by mortals, crass pictures to put in an album, purple adobes, take the lid off to see what hides inside. Dead paper wrappers. And black balls. Cracker crumbs sprinkled over a bit of it, dropping to the  shelf they are contained on. It was to be one thing, but is another. There is a strange feeling that things are not as they should be happening. A Christmas holiday celebrated, remembered on a day in August.

 

        Peripheral views like a kaleidoscope seen for a dime dropped in the apparatus — griffins fly, swoop, to grab me and take me to a different place I’ve never seen before, but the buildings are familiar, comfortable, the buildings reek with an odor that had always haunted, now identified.

 

        My leather soles wear easily. Counting numbers toppling overhead. Short creeks into the night. No certain preferences as to when they strike. I put my hand on the old torn girl scout manual that I keep handy, even today, for protection; reading a paragraph from it to soothe my fear.

 

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