The Trail

The tongue is sometimes very strong,
often longer than the body.
But only slightly developed, and it is
horny.
And, sometimes, with the shoulders
projecting.
There is the collar, sometimes pointed,
and we often find the back is raised like
a sort of cushion—often contracted.
The abdomen is tapering, arched.
It differs in length, and sometimes does not reach.
While in other cases, it extends much beyond it.
The abdomen is frequently furnished,
especially to the extremity of the body.
Occasionally similar on the sides, and
at the tip—the last.

Why Do We Play?

There are a million answers to this here question.
When I was a child, the game of the day was tag.
Run away as fast as you can and don’t let yourself be
touched.
Always running away.
Running away.
But was it really that?
Of course not.
The delight of the game was to be caught, to be
held and jostled and reunited with the ones who
made the game possible at all.
This game was always just the journey to find
someone else, so we could carry on running
together.
Now I’m older, I don’t often run on tarmac.
I get too tired too quickly as the noise and
the sunlight feel like too much.
So instead I retreat to a 21” by 24” screen,
in search of a different kind of Journey.

Suddenly I am a small, red-cloaked thing
in a mass of sand and fabric sentience.
I run and glide and fly as I free crimson
drapes into living shapes, who guide me
through this world so far away.
I slide down banks of rolling gold and
through me whips the wind, as I come
to learn of this world’s sad hurt.
The people had found a power and made
it their own, harnessing it faster, harder—
making their home taller, grander.
When conflict made them twist it all to
fiercer means, that was the beginning of
the end.
Then life itself was weaned.

Now, I am here.
I pass through the graves and sands and
heights of man-made land, all while
trying to understand—
Why am I here?
Why am I here, alone in red and trying
desperately to reverse this fierce dread?
How do I make my long scarf glow
and bring me weightless through the
sky, why do I matter here, what exactly
am I?

The answer lies inside my mind.
When, after each weary trial I sit myself
down, the ones who broke the world do
make themselves known.
They show me it in chapters, so only by
the end can I then realise it.
I’m meant to bring it back somehow,
bit by bit.
When I fix each bridge, crack each cage,
bring life and freedom to those captured
drapes, I am undoing the damage.
Fixing what was ravaged.
Then up I go through the mountain
snow, destined to die by it’s great
white light.
Then I am returned to the cycle of
souls, those meant to come by and
by, until the world is no longer on
the plain to die.

How is this like my childhood?
I can hear you asking it.
The thing with this game, is that there’s
one extra bit.
The ones who made the game made it in
such a way, that more than one red-cloaked
saviour can help save the day.
Trudging lost the sun-scorched plain, you
may suddenly see another scarf drift your way.
Now, you have a stranger who can help
you fly.
You can speak to each other in swells of light,
and take the Journey together.
Running, gliding, flying.

Sweetly reuniting.