Lake Tahoe

I collected pine cones and it was the first two weeks of October. I didn't realize the summer was really gone. I tried to lay by the pool at the mountain time share but the wind just blew through my bones and I had nothing but this little pink book and a pen. The cover was growing grey from gripping it with a tear stained palm for night after night when sleep escaped me.

Staring at the ghostly mountains the wind created a loud swoosh though the pines. It reminded me of the hiss of the ocean.

I sat in the wooden sauna at the spa in the time share condo in the mountains in the woods

and my bones just felt so cold from too much crying and not enough sleep. Very little sleep never made anything right.

The views and the air, collecting the pine cones as if my name was Heidi and burning them in the fire place.

Cleaned the ashes...

It was time to go away.

The mountains haunted me with strange ideas of kidnappings, being carried upside down and seeing the city lights blurry through six year old tears, orange and red and green...

stop lights
yellow lights slowing down the thoughts and the cars and the temperament

but the temperament does not slow
the body is not claimed and I was still carried upside down
through tears
a tightened seat belt
a one horse town...

the rain came and turned to snow in October
and memory brought tears
memory brought a voice that said
"you better believe it"
when I asked...

Is there any way I could have really forgotten you?

...I felt an ache in my body and brain