Quicksand, Ellipses

trailing off,

my thoughts have been...

trailing off,

my posts have been...

trailing off,

my certainty has been...

Hesitation

has become both a strength

and a weakness.

Patience

has become both an asset and a

manipulation.

Thinking in ellipses 

is perhaps a product of age, or decline, or 

maybe an egress...

Where am I going?

To avoid clichés at any cost,

we put together words like 

neuronal emersion

or violet tenderness.

I connect

with people, pencils, comrades, airwaves, bluegrass, trees, crows, breezes.

Balance remains out of reach.

The swamp calls...

No, the swamp grabs. Pulls me under.

It smells of primordial ooze, diamonds, sweat, acorns, twisted steel.

It is quicksand.

Quick. Sand.

I float above myself and see my hand reach up from the mud.

In cartoons when I was a kid, they said if you fall in quicksand, don't panic.

Float. On your back.

No one talks any more about quicksand.

It used to be one of my fears.

Nuclear bombs and quicksand.

I roll onto my back

and float,

breathing in the scent of contrails.

And wait...