Flight mode

Belt fastened. Seat upright. Ready for take off. I am in the exit row. I am learning how operate the safety slides if required. I am not smoking. All of my electrical devices are turned off.

Turbulence is unexpected. Sudden loss of altitude will cut your breath off. Help yourself before helping others.

Brace yourself

Enjoy your flight.

step back

The roads grow wider and the light thins. A grey overhang in the sky. I am melting into the shadows. Hibernating in the crowds.

In the rabbit warren hostels, in stacked beds and gendered rooms I am alone. Finally. Again.

Between the big issues and caffination I knit myself a cover. Weave that which has not dissipated into an identity of sorts. My own map of every city is hardwired. I've traced these steps before. If I chose another laneway would my conclusions change?

From the distance life seems as significant as up close. Have I finally found my meaning? The place where I belong?

in and out of it

I'm sitting in the sun but I can feel the cool escaping the house.
I'm leaving home again.
Packing up to go home.
Back to my childhood
to visit myself.

It's been a crazy time, this shifting of houses, this changing of perspectives. I've scrubbed myself raw, glazed my mind with frankincese and we still lost money on the security bond. Safety is an illusion of credibility. Accounting is a poor subsititute for karmic law.

But the wattles still bloom here
the sea still washes the mangroves
in that old place
and I wonder if
the mountains will sing
the flowers remember
the blue bottles still sparkle
when i return home.

rabbit

Sometimes the idea is more important than the action. The gesture more potent than reality.

The work day ends and I find him. My favourite one basking in sun. The only one I never considered being estranged from. The centrepeice in our mandala reading motor bike magazines and drinking tea.

And I thought "If this isn't happiness, I don't know what the fuck it is."

dirty hands

Practicing alchemy and creation with poultry and plastic containers. Mixing my continents into a cocktail. Consuming everything in sight.

The days become overcast but at least now a little light can get through. Cleaning with five different types of detergant. The gumption takes away what the frankincense won't.

gush

O how I've missed my confession booth. Friday finds me in bed with propped up crochet. The remains of my mothers mania. In this place I feel I am home.

What is this possession of relinquishing all that I am in small bytes of detail. To step aside from the scrutiny and report what really occurs in my heart. If I ever questioned the need for earnesty, the answer has revealed itself to me in the past two weeks.

I've made a list of cords to cut. I am sharpening scissors. I am rehearsing apologies. I am creating more space. I have made a throwing out pile wrapped in brown paper of things to cast out of my life.

I could stay here all evening. It's been long overdue. But red satin calls me to action. I must leave my oasis and enter the desert once more.

playing catch up

Too many weeks with an empty cursor. The backlog of trojan horse virus scans leaves me racked with guilt. My month has been a compound maths problem that I am only just starting to solve. Division is tedious, the opposite multiplies. I am plus and minus frenzied. Trying to decipher the decimal from the point.

My heart is in boxes. I throw away the battered suitcases that have moved me across four states. I overlook this gesture of permanance as I fantasise about other places. Two tubs of gumption and a repetative strain injury couldn't clean up the mess we've made.

Reconcilliation comes on a work afternoon as the last of the light drains out of the kitchen. We speak in measured tones. At the point of crisis we sign last minute treaties.

I hope we can keep them.

Now that my mind has slowed maybe the hangovers will subside as well. Another week of cheap red wine and take away will kill me. I invite something else in instead.