in the winter rain
no messages yet
mingling with the stars
in a wide field of flowers
lilac eyed serpent
it’s old skin shed
Tag: lost
Spider Crack
Up my arms
A shiver at the rustling
Sorting through the keys
We pause and smile
Shimmering in moonlight
Cool breeze swirls around the closed door
A spider with only a thread
Flying blind, I see spider cracks
I bought bright padlocks
For her backpack
A funeral, her first trip
Alone.
Stream boat
We played the part like ancient sea gods thundering and hooting while the boats crashed. We laughed and cheered urging the boats on, throwing in monsters and divine smite. Now and then we were the cyclopes hurling boulders as Sinbad fled our island.
Little paper men, our tortured creations struggled on their boats. They were crudely made and wouldn’t survive the water but that’s all they were made for. Irritated fish would take a few peck to our delight, and small whirlpools doomed the sailors who got far.
I wonder if any survivors made it to calmer waters, green ponds and muddy mangrove inlets. It would have been a long journey past much larger fish who liked to ply the surface of the river as if they really thought they were sea monsters, past birds bathing and swooping down in hunger and in the company of the snails who liked to hitch a ride on everything they came by.
By some mossy green pebbles the paper men might have melted with their paper boats ending on a well deserved journey to Valhalla.
It tickles
Her hands rip at my feet
And it tickles, when you can’t run anymore
How hard you pull!
What incense aired spins?
While I blindly turn-
Do you want me to sink?
Or is it the air you want to climb?
Loaded
There aren’t any bullets in thi-
Relics
Between childhood relics, board games and jars of collectables I found a dead moth.
He died right next to a magic box and my collection of seeds and leaves. Those plants would never leave their jars. For the first time I felt like I’d lost something. The universe was talking to me in simple but effective metaphors.
The Hill
He looked like he planned to spend the entire day sitting out on the branch kicking his legs and day dreaming about Dragon Ball Z or whatever anime he had last watched. But unlike the other days, today he hopped off the tree.
He stomped a few leaves, savoring the sound of them crunching. He looked hard at his sandals and seemed reluctant to put them back on. He crushed more leaves as he made his way down the mud road. A thin layer of dirt stuck to his bare feet. Behind him trailed a long line of foot prints that zigged and zagged and overlapped.
He turned to the swaying bamboo; a yellow cluster of them blocked the view behind him. He looked around like he was lost in a memory or maybe he was just thinking hard. He moved to the left, the side with the trees that blocked off the sharp drop on that side of the hill. Leaves gave way underneath him as he hopped of the crumbling red wall that blocked the bit of land before the drop.
They were brown and dry and hid the ground. It seemed like you would find nothing but leaves if you tried to dig your way to the other side of the planet. The smell of dry leaves and bark coated the area while an unceasing breeze flowed through the trees.
No else seemed to be on the hill. The world below look like an alien place. The wind carried the distant noises of the city. The grey towers and roads dotted the landscape between the green cover to the blue horizon. No one could see him, but he saw all in his elevated realm.
He drew a deep breath and put his hand on a tree. This was an act of rebellion; no one is supposed to go there they always said. It didn’t make sense. They only risk you face is the risk of remembering that the rest of the hectic noisy world still existed.
Rijul Ballal 