Encroachment

As you stretch your shoulders to peer up and over a smattering of twiglets and papery leaves, you notice a misshapen white block of a house hazily in the near distance. Your eyes narrow into slender crevices at some private notion, and you must leave your vigil at the head of the tree. Lightly holding onto branches with long, softened finger joints, you shift your chilled eyes to the woodland decay at the base of the oak, breathing in a cave of lost air before crouching to a silent fall. You catch yourself in a forward roll along a platform of spongy, wildly uneven moss.

            Facedown with a mushroom inches from your upturned nose, you raise your vision above the faded orange disk, focusing on the still unclear white structure that is your destination. Pulling forward, you meet the edge of the forest as mulchy soil turns to grass that was brutally shaven just over a week ago. Unfolding slightly into a low upright position that carries you left and right, you dart among the pre-morning shadows, unseen and cushioned by the miniscule droplets that abound beneath your unclad feet.

            A finger coated with thorns brushes your leg, carving a red line into your flesh that makes you shiver. Your eyes remain upon your goal. The dwelling you seek is just over a ripple of a hill, and you take the climb quickly with your toes and palms, tumbling cyclically over the other side until you feel a wall of undergrowth along your side. You melt sideways into it, your body folding among the dead and living, foliage crunching and sighing at your presence. Snaking your way through the tall grasses, wild berry canes, and rotten mush, your left hand soon finds water.

            Welcoming the icy gurgle, you submerse yourself in the stream, opening the matte surface of your eyes out through the water to glance at the white wood of the house just a short distance from you, making sure you have attained no onlookers. You push your body up from the water with a bony forearm, thin black cloth desperately clinging to the bumps on your skin. The air bites at you as you slither and crawl over a short length of grass, eyes contorting into a frigid and emaciated variation of the smile.

Sage 

7-23-12