the eye of a compass

i can’t escape the sound of a lawnmower today and i wonder what will become of me if my arms are extended. today, the surface is beige & the sound is engine & my arms are above me & something is rising from my body but my mind is in my hand, my mind is in my thumb and in my pointer finger pinched around a balloon’s neck. my fingers are once again the lil’ Dutch boy’s, flesh against stone shoved in a cracked dam. pushing against the power of still water. muscle memory’s stones began to melt in the space outside a womb, butterflied hip bones unexpecting. expanding. exposed. what summer does to a popsicle on asphalt.

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i’m seeking cracks to seep into & i’m seeking a bed of nails to distract myself with. tell me, how many kinds of pain are there? the same amount as kinds of free: freedom, free will, free spirit, freeness. following free with a word because somewhere along the line, language evolved freedom into interdependence. free is only free when it stands next to something. an adjective’s validity resides in its neighbor noun. exists only in relation to something else.

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there’s freedom in 31 flavors, found in concrete cracks or sidewalk trip hazards, remnants of earthquakes or sink holes throughout swap meets of southern california, east & west. North lies dormant, empty till your return. no trail of crumbs, tears, rusted train tracks or fortune palm creases could spur a retrograde & isn’t north supposed to be forwards?