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Samanthapersons.com Copyright 2013
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To Beth, Abbie, and Madison
Madison sits, puzzled, staring into the nothing. There’s a comfort in the memory of not being alone. Over the years predators have become more and more aggressive. They are no longer passive to human presence.
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“She lets her fingers and toes dissolve into the surrounding foliage.� XI
“They never seemed alarmed over Madison’s scent before.”
“She is a phantom of herself, arms becoming twigs, feet becoming stones, ribs becoming caves, her head becoming the top of a rising plateau. Fading between both realities she feels her tears slowly spilling over gullies that are her emaciated eye sockets, down the side of her cheekbones into the pockets of her ears, dulling the sound of her own breath.�
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each place is the same: firepit filled with rusted food cans, charred animal bones, frayed nylon rope, a worn shoe, a pile of chopped wood with a new spring carpet of moss. a salad of dirt, leaves, pine needles, lichen, and blankets. everyonce in a while i can scavenge some cloths, maybe a usable container for water, if i am lucky. the bark of a tree heals over a carved name. sometimes i can swear any minute the owner will pop-out from behind the scarred tree excited to see me. but the tents house new guests: mostly chipmunks, rabbits, skunks, or badgers. once as i approached, my presence startled a deer foraging through the leaf litter and broken glass.
knife hatchet three days worth of water in yellowing plastic jugs old lighters and matches i savenge berries pine and maple sap acorns walnuts a makeshift sleeping bag out of a used and slightly soiled quilt makeshift rope one size to big pair of shoes a dented metal pot i found five seasons ago a spoon the last of my sour apples of the season
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Sometimes naming a thing-- giving it a name or discovering its name-- helps one to begin to understand it.
Evidence decays, disappears, puzzle pieces go missing.
“The longer ago something happened, the less clarity we have. This is the nature of time versus critical observation.�
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