gardia of eden

at the mercy of the elements, my chest grows heavy. there is so much i cannot swallow. my stomach contracts, my eyes expand.

in a sterile room she takes my pulse. explains her concerns for my health. i argue the case for consumption, that I'm recovering from a fall from grace. of those who partook in those heady days, is there been one who has not been struck down?

abandoning ingestion, my appetite is perverted. i sweat through blackouts with rising fevers, thirsting for briney bodies and tropical fruits.

in the whitewashed room we agree
that i am exhausted.

i do not detail why.

victims of the spectrum

the whole day was ravenous. the horizon wears clouds like a gunslinger, slinking low around it's hips. the storm slides into the ocean. water slides into water like skin slides into skin.

by the time it reaches our bodies we are clad in concrete and corrugated iron.

everything is preoccupied with growing. punget greens electrify gardens. we are victims of the spectrum, captured between torquises, pastels and greys.

the atmosphere envelops and claims me.
i become helpless in my restlessness.

the stillenss of green

touch down in thunder and torrential rain. awakening to a world washed green.
early morning chain smoking chain story regurgitation. my mother fresh dressed in jewells greets me with the dawn.

when sleep comes it is swollen with memory and anxiety. i am shuffling myself into place now.

now the grey is stillness and i am aching for salt and my sisters.
stop a moment. breath is catching.
chasing home again.

all this i would exchange

despite the sordid adventures under mosquito nets and bamboo ceilings, despite the sensuality of steam that pushes into every crack in my clothes, despite the glistening terraraced gardens, the torquises waters lapping, the endless olfactory overload, the gastronomic overstimulation

i am aching for the dryness, for invalid mountains, for red and more red, for houdini rivers and big sky country.

it is time to come home.

batur

hoardes of cats and derelict buildings, pork disguised as chicken. cramped betweeen back packs we descend into the volcano, held ransom by the pouring rain

fighting our way through the trinkets. we escape well after dawn, scalps tender from seismic steam baths.

we are winding our way through navigational half truths.
we are bloated on the taste of home.

rise as does the morning

the light of the north is muffled. curtained by clouds, filtered by water.
beneath the shower I am scraping the scent of you from my skin.

between mouthfulls of tea she asks for the details and i say i can't speak of these things. my hands return to emptiness. i am not holding. i am not grasping. these things flow through.

in the last night of the derelict palace i lay awake and contemplated how all things crumble. even stone must submit to the elements. my heart is organic and quickly washes away.

i seek higher ground and rising altitudes.
not yet ready to come back to earth.

Origin of the species

I am twice removed. Disconnected from the electrical. Toes buried in the sand.

This web we weave becomes elastic. Stretched to cover each and everyone. With stained cheeked embrace I remind her that I was never lost. I just couldn't be found.

We solder connections until the circuit is complete. I am full breathfulls of all that was colliding into that which is. I am both the then and the now, and therefore immortal in this place of shifting sands.

These things are for always. Dynamism rules the day.