My road is its own quiet shoe box world, blue sky prettily painted delicate and solid across the cardboard lid of the box, light that filters through little construction paper trees, a neat little diorama of seasons.
(so clear so clearly fake except for the part where it’s real)
My road enters spring with tentative wariness. It dances over and across the border. The snow melts; the sun brings warm summer smell out of the ground, daffodils shoot through the dead leaves, the snow comes back, and sunny little flowers are bent down under the slush, bowing and kissing the ground they rose from.
(and -
My road is named after the fall. It starts with spots and speckles of yellow, cardboard diorama splatter-painted by someone who doesn’t exactly mean to do it, like they’re shaking the yellow paint off their hands and the flecks just happen to land on their pretty little project. Then the painter adds daubs and strokes (apparently they figure they should finish the job) of paint (watercolor in the sunshine, oil in the cloud cover, the in-between either a lot of pigment or a lot of thinner). But the leaves crinkle like printer paper soaked with watercolor, the oil fades and crusts and they flutter down (down down) to the corrugated cardboard ground. They crunch with the satisfaction of tapping letters in a keyboard, of peeling away congealed paint, of erasing the pencil marks to see what picture the ink makes when it’s alone (free).
(and all -
Summer. Green tissue paper swathing the rolled up tree trunk cylinders, the pretty filtering light makes the prettiest shadows and dapples.
(and all the pretty moments -
Winter. Clean pure sheet after sheet of untouched paper tailored to fit every dollhouse slipping quietly into place, the harsh unhindered light bounces and blares off the perfect surface.
(and all the pretty moments in between -
)))))
My road doesn’t have any clocks. The time is kept by falling feet (short increment), passing cars (long increment), and finding roadkill (long increment, if we’re lucky). The beat of the footfalls goes thump thump thump thrumming its way through the empty street.
My road has a different sort of time. (thump thump not tick tick tick) Little shoebox tilted this way and that, not little pebble spinning in space. (thump thump thump not tick tick tick) We get the prettiest shifting seasons (the paint the light the paper the everything ) We get years, which are when you get dumped right on that same spot for the first time in months and there’s this golden watercolor everywhere and that exact moment of pure familiarity: that is where the year starts.
My road has a different sort of time.
The footfalls go thud thump thump treading across the perfect painted sky.
We watch the birds swoop sweep flit fly fly fly between the trees (nothing but stripes spanning the ground to the sky) rising and falling in a breathtaking fleet of ink shapes (everything and anything there is to this world) rolling away in the air until nothing but faded marks splattered across my eyes- the ripples in the air- the soaring soaring wonder in my memory
remains
(fly)
We watch the bodies smash scrape grind smear sink into the warm dry ground, fur and feathers and scales and skin and guts and blood but mostly parts of the, body completely indiscernible (rainbows of colors of flesh) worn away until nothing but a faint stain is left-
(and then there’s nothing)
(crash crash crash)
We watch the daffodils grow.
(thump) Sprout. (thump) Bud. (thump) Bloom.
My road is my little diorama, cute cardboard habitat for the girl who slips and steps and strolls, walks up the road every day since- since (count the days, Ching Ching: thump thump thump whoosh) The girl who struggles to find footing; a proper place. The girl that sits down on the dry paint crust leaves like she does this every day, feeling the sticks protruding from the ground like shriveled gnarled fingers reaching, reaching for her, feeling the damp dirt grit ground against her shoes butt back elbows palms. The girl that waits and wills for the sun to cast some nice lilting warm buttery (the prettiest) light her way, squints through the trees and waits some more. The girl that smiles when it obliges.
(thump )
The girl who draws the daffodils.
(fly fly fly -
Gender:
Points: 2556
Reviews: 45