i could feel time compressing.
"may i escort you mad'am?" he whispered.
the sound of voices, blue eyed clean ***** voices, fading.
silence.

eyes watching me. I, a startled deer.


where else but in his house on the hills and in the caves?
no hanging antlers or portraits of ancestors.

i'd often told,
"that would be nice" I said.

This place is filled with disquiet concerns.
There is a golden fluorescence set ablaze in the sky, a luminous spell we call daylight...it doesn't last for long.
Millions of bricks and wooden pieces stacked together
form large buildings that sculpture the indoors; places to hide.
Wires tangled within the interior.
We hammer decor into the walls and install translucent glass light bulbs
to emit artificial light, a tungsten habitat. This is our shelter from harsh weather, darkness,
our worst fears, reality.

…Time begins to drift, a distance the bones in your arms can't reach.
Electric bills seep through the the mail slots, distress breaks through your safe burrow and crawls from under the chipped parts of melon paint. the dark opacity won't stop whispering, envelopes printed with fine ******* pile onto your filthy maple counter top.
"*******" Sincerely, the government.

The water quit the faucet,
the oil quit the furnace
as you sit in the
same
exact
spot,
only days ago you thought to be harmless.

buried beneath warm feathered blankets in the rust tinted morning glow,
two exhausted soft breathing still bodies lie next to me fast asleep,
I awake.
5:40 AM.
the clement essence of worn clothing and moth eaten Sage daintily flow,

unharmed.