sliding in the mud, murky
we gather things from around us to build
our identity
and they slide away at first rain

with gloves oversized, impossible to feel
external fingers
detached
dismembered
no
that would offer the relief of finality
the security of abandonment

magnet

force, space, rubber air
here is there is where
my mind spins
stop stop stop stop
it's only mental but dismembered fingers
press from both sides
stop

where is it that you are that you look back and constantly tell yourself you saw that coming. where are you when the thunderclap of other people's revelations about you outbooms your own epiphanies? where did you go? did you go wrong, or gently into that good night. they tell you two roads diverge, but not that your soul may along them. you contest that the great myth of experience is that they, superhighway roads, never converge again...this selflie hope, where did you conjure it from?

I sense you have no answers for me. I see you running alongside the speeding locomotive, seeing yourself there in the train oblivious to your own futile, yet heroic attempts to... what?

escape

rickety rickety rickety rack
whoosh, whoosh, whoosh FLASH

dark outside, light now aboard the train. those who retire early slumber in their cars leaving the aisles to those who roam and seek out the power of walking against time while in its belly.

rickety rickety rickety rack, whooooooosh dining car

never orient express, simply formica, relocated high school cafeteria and kidface smears on toocold glass. one other person, never the one

a subtle sway, S-like down the tracks... there going by too fast to exist, save for a light along side a station house. where are we going?