The in between

Some days the gravity is too strong

so I summoned the Eternal by looking at a picture of a bird in flight because a real bird wasn’t in my living room

and then afraid I was about to escape my mind I made hard-boiled eggs and ate one while it was still warm and soft and the scent of bird was there which made me sad that I was eating a bird

so I put that out of my mind and sat down with a hard-bound book and let the weight of it sit in my palms and brushed the cover with my thumbs to feel the hardness and when I opened the book and began to read 

the pages released my mind and it was gone after all

Some days the gravity isn’t strong enough

The erasure was forgotten

The erasure was forgotten

like a slow train

coast to coast

through trees and hills and blasted rock

forgets its ties

that fade into a single, distant point

around a bend

in time

when thought was free

inside your skull

you steel yourself

resisting

those arresting thoughts

powerless

to rail against

the police of thought

A prompt from http://withrealtoads.blogspot.com/2017/02/flash-55-plus.html

In this plain state

Sepia-toned Sunday

I move slowly through the house

Socks shuffling on smooth wood planks

Pausing at the kitchen sink to reflect

On this tiny backyard and its plainness

In this plain town in this plain state

Of affairs

I’ve had with other places this romance

Of what could be, of what I could be

When I was younger

It wasn’t a what-if fantasy that lasted more than a minute

Because I was up and gone

And now I move slowly

Through my body and through my mind

If only to show my heart that it’s ok

To move slowly

Through this romance with the world

As it could be

And the more slowly I move the more I see

The world as it is

And somewhere in the slowness of time

The what-if fantasy is beautiful in its dream-like state

Of affairs

I’ve had this idea that something bigger is happening 

Somewhere else

I was up and gone

And now the world seems smaller

As I shuffle in my socks 

In this plain house, in this plain town

In this plain state

I’m in