Special Places

There were special places where the mind could hide, way up in the branches of a tall tree, safe within a ball of leaves, halfway to heaven. Or on a bike aimlessly riding streets when the hypnotic hum of tyres and the constant rhythm broke through and sent me into a pleasant trance as if the body was floating free of the ground. Then there were places where you couldn't hide, dark and musty hollows they called holy places populated with legions of dead souls sniffling their sorrows in the candlelit air. Dark cubicles carrying the odor of sin, the sour breath of absolution filtering through a curtained grill. And all around, images of pain plastered on walls pressing a claim for love under the threat of everlasting fire just for refusal. It all sounds silly now, the hellish props stacked away in an unused corner covered in ash. Discarded remnants of an ill informed past. And yet at times, I am sure, I can feel something small still twitch on the end of a severed nerve. I call out. But nobody seems to be there.