Castle walls lit golden against violet hills.  Brambles grew in every direction and blocked our way home.  Princesses lost in a darkening wood.

A chorus of jingle bells exploded over the hillside. We braced ourselves, expecting dancing bears, or herded sheep. The beast exploded out of pine and privet. It’s weapon drooled, leaving a trail. A slug trail, dripping on grass like dew, as it hunted its master’s meal.

We purchased warm baguettes. Steam rising from crusty exteriors. Using the bread like a rusty sword we fought off the demons that had gnawed our insides raw.

Half shrouded in dappled sunlight, half in blue mist. I lay in dead leaves and inhaled a breath of fungal spores. Musty and earthen. Humus destroyed hubris and let me just be.

Huddled under blankets in a 30 degree hotel room. Breath freezing with every exhale. I looked through pale curtains at a palm tree. How did it survive these temperatures while I struggled, shivering, to drag myself into the day.

Hand-knit atrocities. Screaming at me from wooden racks. Sweaters in their crocheted reveries, longing to keep the wind off of someone’s back.

The daylight began. Melting dewdrops, setting them loose in the morning fog. We climbed on mossy ground. On sponges and stone.

I learned how to ice fish from a miniature sailor. He wore sheep’s wool and torn rubber boots. The heat reached seventy degrees, but we managed anyhow.

Even the seagulls here have modeling contracts. I paid him in change and gold plated gum wrappers.

We were children in a candy store. Eye candy. Bite size fish in technicolor. Swimming in our retinas. Reminding us of forgotten dreams.