All week I felt scoured raw. Roughed up and beaten into a pulp. Nevertheless birdsong and tiny flowers settled into my scored skin. A dog licked my ankle, and I lead him through the front door out into the street, dragging my interior world along with us. My thoughts flew up in eddies of black birds, and unfurled from trees, and scattered when the phone rang. Everywhere things were trying to speak to me, and I half-listened. When someone said hello, in passing, at last, I could finally feel my self snapping back into place: here, here, here.

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