Yeah so I ended up here

With a girl who was Jesus Christ

A bloke who carried gold playing cards

And you picked the high card

Ace of hearts so all was cool

A girl who screamed abuse at nurses

Everytime she had an injection

And you couldn't really blame her

Nothing metal nothing steel in

The ward so you walked in socks

With no belt and unshaven

Finally protesting in the TV room

Piling up sofas against the door

Becoming legend in the ward

Known forever more as the Tetris

Master of Flynn Ward in a battle

That was finally won in a place

Where winners were in short

Supply or you wouldn't be here

Leaving finally shaven shoed

The final great escape but not like

Steve McQueen only better.

You reach out to me,

I reach back

We talk for a while

Maybe take it a bit further

But eventually

We're suddenly strangers

breathing the turquoise like lavender,

and sipping the blue summer.

bitter cold clouds glide and morph lava lather,

floating whispers cut by sweet pineapple sunshine.

soon, a moment, now

rhythms ripple the sky like skipping stones

we jump the music like puddles

splashing in the frequencies.

cobalt bass rumbles the earth hungry,

pumps the air with springing spirals

pushing and pulling the senses,

reverberating through cells.

heavy mud humming, stomping

echoes through our atoms dizzy;

balancing tuned body to innate electricity

the fizz of circulating lemonade energy.

we jump the music like puddles

splashing in the frequencies.

strawberry melodies spilling ribbons,

dolphin leaps of the spaces inbetween beats,

lines of colours overlapping,

colliding, mixing, merging, blending

in with the forest.

washing over souls the life fire sparkles

like a clear water cleansing harmonies,

sound waves crashing against inertia.

phosphorescent glow of re-charged love

for the world, for being, animation

flowing through burnt smoky ashes

of sapphire charcoal skies;

dimmed radiation of chlorophyll emerald days.

the smell of salt, dry bark, fluffy carbon mists,

trembling lights softening the eyes'

grip on outlines, loosening lies.

watching the cycles of patterns

tumbling colours through a mill rotating,

and the silence of listening

when the music comes to an end.

"I don't know about that."

"It's better than it looks."

Trust, not blind but with skepticism.

The worst part of the hike is the rope, I've never done this one before, and for some reason I go first. It takes a while to figure out how to climb up the twenty foot near-vertical face that's so eroded the dirt footholds have turned to slippery sand, and the ledge by the tree that's holding the rope seems like a mantle to nowhere, so instead I go left and once to flatter ground I promptly sit to collect myself. I don't look down the hundreds of feet drop below. It's better not to.

"It'll be better on the way down, right? There's nothing else like this on the route, is there?"

"No."

No to what, I wonder.

Merrily we hike, an endless ridge, granite towers, purple flowers, dwarf fireweed, signs of mountain goats and wolves, and eventually the turning point is the front door to the ice field.

The return hike, yellow flowers, sun in our eyes, side hilling to save our tired legs, I can see home far below by the water, ravens follow us, it's perfect.

And then, we're there again.

The down climb is, yes, just as bad. We stop, collect ourselves, mentally prepare. Slowly, safely, not exactly trusting the rope but letting it guide us down. I sigh when we're all safely to the ridge below, the scariest, and best, behind us.

What's the worst that could happen?

You fall, get hurt, really hurt, or you don't and then you get to see it all.

I could smell her loveliness

Her fragrance stands beautifully in my way

Her voice can caress my flesh

Or cut the bone away

Before reaching my ears

That strain to hear a message in the bottle

Warm to the touch, chilling my heart

Casting off layers to make my swaddle

Her inner embers distort the air

Sinusoidal conversation

Wafting aglow in night vision blurs

Begging illumination

She tastes of woman, bittersweet

Has tongues everywhere to savor every flavor

She speaks in tongues, forked tongue-in-cheek

Sings songs in one gasp of misbehavior

She whispers in a shout

And laughs with the might of all her tears

She knows what is and how and why

But grows younger to my years

I see, smell, hear, taste, touch with alien organs

Thought and sensation zigzag moiré nonsense

My mind is her game, synapses overloaded

Interweave peaks and valleys of welcome penitence