Sunday

I hold hope, slippery like jell-o, in cautious hands. In this new continent, unfamiliar smells assault me. Their pungency and bitterness, all at the same time. I taste it at the back of my throat. I hold my breath, counting backwards each time till I can breathe freely. There is no air here: only the stench of life and the constant lingering smoke that hangs persistently across the grey blankness where the sky should be.

Tuesday*

I hunch down so I am small as you and think friendly thoughts;

close my eyes, once, slowly, so you know I am not a threat.

I know you know that I know you want to come closer,

but my unfamiliar scent floods your nostrils, signals caution.

I back away; we are not such different species after all.

Monday

I want to whistle without caring how I look, trip with impunity and grin at my own internal jokes.

More than anything I want the optimism, the surety of youth: it is, or it isn't.

In times like these, I want to consult with inexperience.

Monday

When facing a milestone, I am acutely aware of the changes in and around me.

Nature set ablaze, yellowing and fiery reds. All the earth seems richer.

In ten years, I have never seen Autumn the way I see it now: dramatic like a David Attenborough documentary, as life folds into itself and we vainly seek the comfort of our past.

Thursday?

I forgot to catch my breath. I forgot what day it is. I even forgot to write.

****

While the world moved at warp speed I saw in my mind's eye another life:

I cut up my credit cards and closed my bank accounts. Deleted my emails. Cancelled my phone account. Then sold my laptop, possessions.

Burned all the pieces of paper that bind me to this way of life.

And when it was done I was nameless and unidentifiable.

Saturday

The waiting game. Which part of this is a game?

Is there an implicit suggestion that one of us is the winner, the other loser?

Monday

The wait, it goes on and on, endlessly on and on, promises stretch on and on, endlessly pliable.

Every uncertainty creates another mountain, not a molehill no it's not. Insurmountable?