those who slap

creep

crawl

bleed

scream

these words onto  clean white pages        or onto small scraps of old lined paper, ripped from a traveler’s journal

see the old words scribbled        threaded with the madness of a shipwrecked, damaged soul

and, often, they too find themselves treading in similar deep, empty waters          as their words lay in books of fine linen     or  in

tattered notebooks stuffed with

thoughts          or pure, raw emotion…

they see themselves        on public screens such as this

understand        or knowingly feel the familiar signs

trusting the aged buoys in the distance         they find their own markers     signifying

a journey of crawling back onto safer sands…..

others

watch the process of

finding an elusive wisdom,  recognizing the spirit, semi-revived          knowing the effort it takes to finally

re-locate  the breath        held for a time         that was so gruffly pushed out of lungs….

they know what it is to nurse  scuffed knees, now tended and bandaged            after such a fall from grace  or favor

the spirit/heart         mostly recovers from the aches and bruises that once felt        endless and irreparable

it sees where the breaking points were    where  tender flesh was   ripped from bone, tendon & muscle

how each hunk of us once blown apart  and        fragmented into a million broken pieces

was nudged back into        living

after all…

like skid-marks on a lost road       black and midnight blue on asphalt

fellow word travelers on these empty, unforgiving roads        watch

another one          crawling from the wreckage    emerging

burned

scarred and battered

but

somehow

alive  again

after all