Member-only story
Message for Bears
Walking my trail with a pack full of dreams
Grandmother told me having a dream is a little bit like hiking with a heavy pack. You gotta have the courage to open it up and look inside, but you also gotta pick it up and carry it. So I’m looking. At flowers beneath
my feet, sweat-soaked shirts, grimy face, and fifty miles between me and you. Cause I decided on a Tuesday, gotta start doing life before life does you, and I been done by life too many times. Got a walking
stick and a dog attached to my hip. She looks up like I got the answers, and I keep walking, thinking, each trail might be the right trail. But each trail might also be the last trail. Which changes the feel of progress.
I carry a pistol because it’s dangerous but keep it away from my hands because I’m untrustworthy. And on days when talking to my mother is ground zero, I ziggurat like a butterfly. I breathe
deep breaths from my cave-mouth, count them slowly and define contamination. On those days when mother is two planes kissing towers, the bottom of the lampshade becomes
a halo because the only way to stop being afraid is doing things you’re afraid to do. And I’ve heard all their various bird voices, tying and folding secret messages in my pocket. Why would I listen
