By the mouths of old crows.

Lucid dreaming comes easy. Lucid living becomes tougher. I see fantastic stories through windows. I only watch real briefings to enjoy the silent signers providing translations for the deaf. I like the chorus more than the talking bobbleheads.

I recall the slight mass of you. The feel of thin, increasingly inelastic, skin covering the meat of your body. Neckline, nape, and collarbone. Connect the dots; then, come and paint me by numbers. Sign your name with a dripping brush’s tip.

These past days, I have been thumping animal hide stretched over wood. Striking a drum head, softly. Purchased in a foreign market of an alien continent where cattle roam the markets. Haggled over; Hand made; Had at a bargain. Despite being single, that day, I wore a fake wedding ring to increase the currency of my social capital. It’s all in the details innit?

And, the majority of talismans donned subliminally indicate”don’t tread on me.” A woman stranger in a man’s strange land. When in Rome, signal in Roman with protective signs.

I carried the drum on my back for weeks before sailing with it across the ocean. Talking drums teach the impact of saying things by leaving them unsaid. Cowardly lions, heartless tin men, and straw fellows appearing solid until picked apart as disappointing carrion by the mouths of old crows, before finally being blown away and scattered into bits by the slightest breeze.

Dorothy was just trying to find her way home. Wherever that place is. On her way, she sees Shiva stars exploding and feral Nataraja dancing.

“You’ve been needle-pointing with your yarn, Ariadne. You must keep moving.”

“No. I must first knit some socks for your cold feet, dummy. Otherwise, you will certainly slow me down.”

The Goddess and Godhead grew weary of playing the same, old god games together.

So, they exploded. Blew themselves apart into a billion scattered jigsaw puzzle pieces. Awaiting once promised reassembly. Now, we all seek out one another in our presently incarnated iterations. Looking for another missing piece with whom I may hold hands. Spending a spell of time choosing to walk each other home to ourselves, until each of us arrives before a door we remember forgetting.