Smoke

Each voice is loud and each conversation drifts in and out of not-so attentive ears - it is the eyes that are captivated, roaming the fence-bound land in front, picking up specks of a forbidden language. A hand brushes, eyes sweep and linger, backs turn and shoulders hunch. Their voices are piercing but their actions deafen. Each one of them a world of reaction and a husky whisper in a foreign tongue. In their pairs, they make a universe, full of words unsaid through tongue and lips. For hours, they could be watched and catalogued, each movement, each subtle wave of feeling placed in the pages of an empty book - though it would be full within minutes.

They stop. Heads turn in one direction and there is unity for a moment -

It's bright, so bright that their faces glow and their eyes reflect an off colour, an inhuman colour. It starts small, then grows with the breaking of wood and the ripping of unread newspapers. Language is lost and all falls silent as eyes focus and stare, nothing moves but the curling of the flames.

But with each stare, a different whisper comes, growing louder as the smoke makes circles in the air and the floating black of burnt paper spirals upwards with the wind. The bodies shift away from the light as it licks towards them, begging and pleading for them to come closer. But they know to step back, every movement mutters a tense curse - some so loud they're shouting.

But they do not hear it with their ears, they just stand and watch the smoke as it mates with the air. Unaware of their screaming, their yelling in the language only the eyes can decipher.

Their eyes stare at the light, reflecting an inhuman colour and the smoke drifts.

Summer

The shine pools in through the window warming bare shoulders and gently caressing a brighter mood. Everything feels better in the sunshine. The hills roll in the distance, like painted clouds, fallen and anchored to the ground.

From the old weather-worn and warped windows miles can be seen, the sleepy villages bedded on the hillside waking with the sunlight and the heat and playing beneath the cloudless blue.

And as the sun begins its slow descent beneath the horizon, the trees sway, dancing to the tune of the birds.

Mine

It's late. It's always late when I decide to twitch my mind towards this chequered background and these winding words. Even with absences it still feels like home - there is a place here, a place connected to my founding organ. The link pulses with every beat, strengthening and binding itself. It cannot be broken. I sit in different places, different homes, different minds sometimes but it remains, here, safe, same.

As I am in transition, between two places and another, it waits. It is kind, forgiving. There is no ill, no abandonment. It is mine and I am its.

It waits here, a constant friend, ready at any hour. It's always late when I decide to come here but it's always waiting for me. Listening.

Cacti

One day it will be all filled with cacti, tall and thin and up to the sky. If you could see the sky. Each visit, there is a new one in a pot on the floor. It feels exotic, though it is everything but. A smile, a soft accent, a new word. Cockahoop. It feels a lot like another home.