I've been home for, what, just over a week now..

..and I'm very pleased to say that Bartok is doing very well indeed with his new radiator and transmission and fuel line and back brakes and please car gods this is ENOUGH for a while, ok?

(Well, not really, as I do need to get that headlight and the windshield nick fixed. But. For now, enough.)

It feels very odd, not having lettering on the back door. As a point of honour, it had to come off, and that's a complicated bit of honour that involves van clubs and a history that is not mine. Still, I hadn't intended to do anything about it quite so soon. Yes, letters were already peeling and yes, I needed to work on the rust, but. But but but. Had my mother not felt it was a good idea, it wouldn't have happened quite yet; and looking back, I don't think I could have done it by myself.

Mostly I am trying to not think of that blank space, but I was reminded tonight, driving home, by someone else's eyes that yeah, it's real.

Annnnnd..I'm still not wanting to deal. So I'm shoving that chunk of emotion back into its cardboard coffin.

twiddle

and i turn my shell-shirt inside out
cling to oak and ash and thorn

moving forward, dark and frightened
across the space no longer owned
by my spirit, by my wandering
by my constant-crying heart

dare not linger at the fire
where flames spit at the night
dare not consider all the bounty
of poisoned wine and feast

you the lodestone lost, grown cold
my feet find not their bearing
circling, slipping, clawing onward
scraping out unchartered ways

thorns and roses bind and climb
i dare not pause to brush away
their whispered plots and misdirection
enchantments, follies, broken dreams