I have buildings growing in my bones
red bricks staggered stacking high
with blue tile and brown stone
the paint is already cracking but it is still fresh with life
beds are laid with quilt and skin of animals
the plants grow tall wall to wall
and on the walls
so much of me
I must paint and paint and paint

She stood a few meters to the west, a strikingly close distance that would usually be much too close for comfort, with what I expected to be thoughts of danger and malice floating around in her head. But here I was stone-still in my long johns with a lovely tea in hand (I had gathered mint and bark earlier in the day just for it) and I was not afraid. I had a head and a stomach full of sisterhood and peace to offer her. We stared deep into each other eyes for what seemed to be a long while. She tested the waters, moved with unease, smelled around my camp. She was a shaggy silhouette backlit by a lush sunset of purples and reds.
I observed her and she me. As the stars began to peek out at us here down below, she seemed to grow comfortable in my company. A true creature of the night. Both pairs of our eyeballs hung bodiless now through the curtain of nightfall, reflecting only the small fire I sat near. Her eyes were glazed in a funny kind of yellow, and I’d bet mine looked just as eerie to the wide-eyed wolf floating in nothingness. She wandered and sniffed out into the trees and sat for a moment watching me drink my tea. With that, I never saw her again. One moment, one blink, and her eyes were gone from the shadows. I was alone again. I appreciated her company and was glad to have shared this evening with her.

The coals burned for a while with the dying dusk but eventually bled into the blackness just like everything else. Everything had its day but now it was night.

Most nights were expected to be lonely. I braced myself for the sorrow. Tonight it did not come. Though shivers shook my spine, rattling my bones, I felt no desire for any arms other than mine to warm me. Instead there was ecstasy and freedom in my solitude that flooded my dreams. I was alone and I could do absolutely anything that I pleased. So I slept and slept long and slept deep and woke with the sun as my only companion and was very glad that it was so.

The next few moons were peaceful, as the skies were preparing for the birth of the next blood moon. I too prepared myself for the next leg of my journey.

My destiny is not what I desire but it is what I need. More than anything, I want you. A life of stoke and steeze and stars and streams shared with you. And I may get that. Someday. But that day isn’t today and it won’t be tomorrow because we both know that we’ve both got mountains to move, to climb, to see, to love. Someday, I think, we’ll find ourselves standing at the bottom of the same one, ready to move it and that first one we move together will be so easy. Because we’ll have the other, and for the first time. So the load will be shared and it will not seem so big. I’ve got a feeling that there is a range of mountains awaiting our eager hands and each night it tickles my dreams to think that maybe we’ll see them tomorrow, maybe I’ll see you tomorrow. But I’m starting to forget about them and you, and forgetting deliberately. Because going about each day with a mind so caught up in what will be or what was or what is but isn’t here, is a destructive delight. I need to be here, whether you are with me or not. And you need to be there, whether I am with you or not. I hope soon again we’ll be in the right place and that right time because I miss you because you’re special and you’re special because you are far beyond my imagination. My imagination’s got no limits except somehow I can’t dream up anything more about you than what your eyes looked like when you first realized you loved me and what a long ******* haul we were in for. Those eyes came 3 minutes after I met you and my eyes did the same about a week before I even knew what your eyes looked like. I don’t know. I can’t imagine, but that’s how I know you’re something worth fighting for. I know you all too often only see a grey cloud, but you are only silverlining to me, bub.

If you say that you love the wilderness then do not forget to love the parts that are truly wild. The parts that are terribly so. do not forget to love the storms and winds that whip the weak and make you whine, the aching cold that crushes hopes of continuing, the haunting heat that held your mind captive. They are the unforgiving wild. Beautiful days beautiful views are beautiful delusion. They are not hard to love. The bruises and bites are the reality. They are hard to love. But if you keep coming back, as many do for reasons unknown to them, you will learn after a number of years to love the wild for what is really is,
harsh
terrifying
difficult
unapologetic
and unbelievably flirtatious

You planted the impossible in my heart and told me to make it grow
I cant tell you how many nights I've spend down in the dirt on my knees begging pleading fighting for those dreams to flourish and bloom falling in love with the breeze that blessed them with hope and courage but fear still clenches my capability and i worry and wash my face with tears thinking that my debts will go unpaid my death will go unmourned my life will go unfulfilled
But you you strong unmovable mass you only move when you want to oh you only move on your own accord and when you do the earth shakes you remind me that i spilled from the womb the way your rivers spilled from your white and like you i too will take time to weather and wane but when my time comes they will wish they had seen me coming
I refuse to die before I've made myself yours and if i do die by your hand do not let it be any other way
To you i owe my life and with you i will spend it
I would and will **** to be yours
Just you wait i wont stop til i get there

The North Country calls to those few who search for each other.

They’ve trekked far and long through poverty, apathy, tireless addictions
to find a place that takes their hands and holds them softly and coaxes the needles from their arms and bandages old wounds now infected and
kisses their lips like the first time again and says that there are better things to be had than heartache and misery.

They have found their home in the North high above all things where they were lead by a hunch that told them that they would find each other there.

The others.

Those few who feel the meat of life in their flesh, flavorful and juicy with humanity, emotion, and healthy discontentment.

They smell the scent of existence and experience in their nerves, tingling with peppermint sensations and awareness.

And in their bones is a thing or two more: A strength that houses their curious souls and replenishes dignities before sending them onto their next spiritual expedition.

They have skeletons that rattle with the purest rhythms of an entity, bones that drum a beat more constant than heart.

There are parties waiting for them in their marrow where they will find the river of unlimited knowledge and friendship and ***** that was truly always coursing through their veins.

I cannot wait to ride that beautiful river and be so full and so satisfied.

Summer died,
fall is not far behind,
Let us bring out the horns and announce the birth of another Lady Winter.
This is a time of celebration!
Let her rise to power and potential.
Take her hand in a royal courtship.
Escort her to the high celestial kingdoms in the mountains above us
where they will honor her nobility.
Let her be showered with gifts of poetry and love letters.
Dance with her the great dance that will take you all the way to the edge of April
and drink in honor of this favorite lady of ours.
******* the sticks of freedom that will draw lines and paint her perfectly.
Let her bless you with her beauty and good fortune.
She will wrap her white shawl around all and kiss their cheeks,
leaving everyone blushing and rosy.
Love her, that elegant Lady Winter.
She will come to your land and rule
Regardless.