I ran away with the alchemist

There was something about the morning’s light

a lust hung heavy in the air
it tangled itself through the gumtrees like persistent wind
and it sat as a stone between my lungs

I watched the butter melt
and my feet swell from the heat
wriggle my toes
a distending restlessness in my chest
that moves me, I rise up from my chair

I knew where to wait
where he would find me

I stood in silent fever,
purpose burdens my brow
a bundle of possessions upon my back
tonight, I was running away with the alchemists

I met him where the sky crowded with furious grey
and the air thickened
and held us fast
a summer storm

‘I see something in you’ he said
‘something I feel in the earth beneath my feet’

My pulse quickened as I watched his steady hands
he held my arm and silently
traced a line down my wrist
he held my hand out
and I stretched my fingers wide
‘you have hungry hands’
he said

We wandered through towns
sometimes by foot
sometimes by train
we travel for a few weeks, or is it a few days?

I do not know where we are going
this alchemist and I
but this recklessness feels like the most truth
I have ever known.

I feel things deconstructing inside me
superfluous things
the pieces crumble and the wind catches them
they float away for someone else to cling to
I breathe each new day deep into my lungs

We reach our destination on a cool day
there is a bite to the breeze and my skin prickles
it is a crowded camp
with groups of people scattered
in perfect disarray
some whispering, some laughing, some playing
music fills the air
and I feel the ground warm beneath my feet

‘welcome, hunter’
my alchemist whispers to me

he wears a comfortable smile, he belongs here
his sandy blonde hair that falls across his eyes
his gentle steady hands
his quiet independence
I follow him and we weave slowly through buzzing crowds

My first night I sit quietly as everyone congregates
people talk in impassioned tones
about what we need
and how to hold that close
and what is beyond that
what should fall away

‘what we seek
we find
in seeking’

I dance with the children
I teach them to stamp their feet
in syncopated rhythm
and leave their hands to wild chance and caprice

They braid flowers in my hair
and we run barefoot
with bells around our ankles
to herald the joy of journey

they run naked and free by day
by night they grow quiet
a sombre awareness of the sanctity of ceremony
they sit in circles and listen
eyes wide and resolute

The night I first saw you,
the fire made patterns across your face
as you sat drawing pictures in the dirt with your hands

We lie naked together, I draw circles on your belly with my finger

in the distance I hear the toll of the bells
a steady implacable rhythm
I watch your lips form words
that I feel in my marrow
did you know that with your words you touch me in my bones?

I watch for your consonants,
how the heavy ones make your lips touch
I stop hearing the consonants and
I listen for the vowels, open and wide
I feel the space they create inside me

When we kiss we make heavy consonants with our lips
and soft sibilance with our tongues
and you breathe your vowels into me

The alchemist and I walk together

we talk about feeling things course through our bodies

and burst from our skin

I tell him about my firelit lover

he tells me quietly to be careful

that she only belongs

to her dreams

Time passes and my lover turns away
her forehead is heavy
and an absence grows between us
maybe it was always there
she looks at me as if she always knew I didnt belong to this life

I plant flowers and tend to them with desperate hands
but they wither in the heat,
as I wither with emptiness

I walk alone through this tent city
this palace of fabric
the night is dark and silent around me
but for the warm light of lanterns
hanging limp
my step steady with fortune, with fate with the demise of my dream

It was a childish dream
what once felt like a liberating truth
is now anarchy for my body.

I leave this place, 

it drops from my skin
and scatters on the floor

like leaves

like burning embers

like crumbling charcoal and smoking ash

I find my way back to the old life
to purpose I know is contrived

but I know that I need

I still plant sunflowers in a row in the front garden

I still open my windows and fill my house with light

I feel the dirt between my toes 

clench my eyes shut and throw my arms wide

for freedom I can find here

I carry them with me,
every gleeful child
my alchemist
and the woman who shared my bed
I foster their spirit of seeking
I cradle it in my palms
let it run through my fingers
and spill into my day, my home
my life is both settled and free