pale thin line. [get up or lay down]

if you were very still, as a child in a classroom

trying so very hard to listen and didn't fidget...

you might hear it.

you might.

the sound is almost imperceptible.

but you'll see it...

just a vivid white line trailing behind a piece of chalk.

i like the way the dust spills just outside of the hardened line,

like a whisper of rebellion reminding that it isn't ever one or the other.

it might seem so, but really it mostly isn't.

one side feels incredibly wild and open;

wide and deep and ripe with the magic of the woods at night.

the other side is a bright city

pulsing.

and you enter the city limits speeding

like some raging pain recklessly driving

leaving track marks

and soon you're disappearing in plain sight

and dancing around the room through the sway

you find it and put it in your bloodstream

and before you know it,

it seeps through your pores

this coat of protection

and right there the pain stops

your mind races to lovely things

switch. on.

off.

on.

off.

on.

it's all the same.

quand meme, darling.

and like bathing in a delicious apathy.

dirty feet and hands

couldn't care less

just languid little happy life in a goldfish bowl

and they think you're at your most beautiful then, don't they?

when you take the form of some gypsy and disappear

it's fascinating living as a ghost

eyes hollow and always, always smiling

all wrapped up in clean white sheets

but dirty and black eyes and skinny like a model

it's all ashes and blood and bones and smoke

and some broken song

go faster

go slower

it doesn't matter, just keep moving.

one will catch up.

just move until the pain or the painkiller wins.

one will win. they always do.

and you'll stop moving. you'll just cease.

it will go terribly wrong and it will cease.

and the pain will engulf you like a black hole.

so crawl back, if there's time left on your side to that jagged little line

on the other side...

it's something so beautiful,

but it hurts like hell
the magic of the woods at night is met with the terror of the unknown

and you feel every single pulse

every single memory

every single one

even when you sleep

wide awake singing hymns in the middle of the night

looking fear dead in the face while it shakes you

walking straight through some valley of the shadow of death

and it's never quite the way the words sound

pure suffering

and clinging to some invisible hand of hope that most often

feels like nothing more than air

but you keep moving

you keep singing from inside where you believe

just move until that love wins
because it always will.

and peace is the pulse
and healing invades

and then the morning comes...