Where I Go

"Where do you go," you asked, "when you stare out into space?"

I told you of mystical places where the sky was forever streaked with pink and the water always ran clear. Places where all furniture hung from ceilings, and where all beating hearts were connected as one. Where zebras were spotted and giraffes were striped, and where lions had sets of horns growing through their manes.

I told you of lines that never met and train tracks that never ended; of phosphorescence that made our teeth glow green and our nails look like claws in the dark; of dizzying heights where sky became ocean again, and looming depths that crept upon you when you turned your back. I told you of the contours of a body, caught in morning light, and of faceless crowds scrambling up the outside of skyscrapers; of creatures that looked like desks, and desks that looked like creatures.

I described sorrowful music that played from the mountains in winter, embracing the pines with melody, and the tinkle of waves dancing with mermaids on island shores. I mimicked the circling carrion crows that sounded like cockatoos. I spoke of crumbling graves under curtains of light and I danced the dance of the dead. I told how I mourned the loss of it all as it dissolved into dense blackness before my eyes.

You nodded and walked away.

And it wasn't till later that I realised you were really asking if I was thinking about you.