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 ^{(it's beta!)}

Though my surroundings were bland, (thick grey concrete walls, most of which were scrawled in the reds, greens, and 'brite' construction oranges of spray paintings. A discarded paper in furthest corner, latent and unwindblown.) the sun shone in and illuminated vacant spaces, with two metal drainage tunnels on both left and right. The enclosement didn't close, a gutter-roof and manhole door with, of course, two arms of tunnel-ways; to my right led to ditch and exit, but my left was dark and a constant unventure.

"Hey look! the lid is up! What if something is under there?" a kid foot stomps on thick rusted manhole cover, frightening me and making my writing shaky but still legible.

"Under Where?" above me rattled my door ajar, little boy sneaker peeking through this opening. Then came laughter and one jolt of bike tires rapped then sped off, the amount of laughter trailed behind; echoing in my hiding place and relieving me of unwanted visitors.

Immediately I arose and attempted to lift this stubborn door, but once I went to touch it, rust flaked off from the brush and sprinkled onto my onlooking face until I ceased and begrudgingly sat back down with the fast failure weighted on my already aching sunburned shoulders, freckled with past burnings.

My back, too felt backwards and twisted with the pain of my posture leaning back on this slab of guttural canvas.

And oh! my hand shook and quivered along with insides still recovering the previous surprise. They churned with hunger too I suppose, mentally eyeing leftover pizza of my home refrigerator, thirsting for unopened bottle of tea that I had forgotten to bring before I left to walk here, where I had no cushioned seat nor food to eat.

But I could sit here in peace and enjoy myself to serene solitude.

I could be out of the sun and in cool grey, a collected breeze blowing in from overhead light source.

I was a little anxious over the sudden event; but all I could hear now was the passing of cars and joggers, no more young imaginatives to barge in on this creative flow. That breeze really soothes me, and I'm breathing in the damp cavernous air from the left tunnel too, making me a little curious of its starting place. I wanted to leave here still, but after I packed up, I turned to my right and headed toward sunlight and ditch ways.

It takes me near fourty minutes to arrive at the nearest library, and when I do, I'm drenched in sweat, red-faced, close to passing out. Leg muscles ache over to the bathroom, though pausing to cure my thirst at a water fountain. Cold water would dance inside my gasping mouth and slither down a dry throat, almost too sudden of a cold that pierces my thoughts and doesn't aid at all.

Vision blurred and hazy, head dizzy, and heart racing; my legs stumble to quiet floors, tiled with two by two grey squares, sad in it's plainess. The stall swings open with a slight tug and closes with similar ease, a metal bar secures me from outside handwashers or curious meddling children.

I have no need for the toilet if only for a seat, which I take breathlessly to calm and wipe collected face and backsweat with hanging toilet paper, suspended two feet above dirty ground.

I could hear women shuffling their children around, off of diaper changing stations to cleansing sink. I kill about fifteen minutes at this, simply sharpening my ears while sitting back to regain natural color.

Silence your coughs! We must be quiet here, where cell phones grow useless and our silence means our solitude!

Out on the street neighbors are fixing their Dodges along to country music booming out from the auto's stereo. They listen to disturbances foremost, so keep the voice down; slightly lower than your inside voice would do the trick. Just enjoy that feeling where we can fool ourselves in to thinking we're alone in this world. Wouldn't that make you realize?

Nothing but total bliss could beat these wind bursts that circulate in this underground concrete breezeway. A flying feeling can be achieved if only you raise arms from your sides. Imagine it with closed eyes!

Earthy smells secrete from pools of old rain water drying in a damp climate, it almost makes you feel buried in the divine sense of afterlife.

A broken bottle has accumulated in opposite side, with an empty, dried-out lemon encasing enveloping a fallen leaf. Other people know of this place, let's only hope they don't figure the same and come smiling to meet.

Enough with the outbursted heart-story, what is my mind concocting? No witches brew in time for Halloween, nor holly-jolly tidings of Christmas, but the old played-out novel of St. Valentine. It's early fall but the feeling of late winter carries in a strange mind stage of season shifter.

Who stumbled out of this five-foot-round drainage tunnel, finding nothing but bleak graffittied concrete dim in the dull night moon? Who turned right to walk twenty paces to see on the left a heightened platform that weaves two corners before leading to suburb streets? Their bottles are left behind; cracked and shattered, glass tears of last night's follies.

I hear running child-stomps on the asphalt above, mumbled laughter of make-believe villains. Sweet cherub-cheeks strung tight by youthful imagination, played with the bow of naive bravery.

My posture has become uncomfortable, back construed by the twist of my lean. I'll get up. It's time.

The day is calling, shouting sunbeams through glass, window panes crossing in silent shadow. Illicit with his cry, swearing in stammered sentences slurred from early morning imbibe. He wants us to bask in the day-glow and soak up his good intentions. Sidewalks yearn to meet with the soles of our feet so they can lead us somewhere unknown and peaceful.

But we play indoors, we will be calling out from the inside with drum beats and bass lines intertwined in musical intellect. No caressing breezes, only ear-pleasure and eye-candy.

Is it right to ignore him when he shines so bright?

Should we be punished with rain clouds instead?

When I try to keep busy, he interrupts with his longing; a wanting to share the happiness that lingers beneath his bright blue head, fluffed with tufts of pure white. To oblige would be divine, if only it were up to me; I would gleam to reflect my pride in nature and praise that living dirt under light feet.

Maybe I'll walk out of here, where the weekend was spent under community covers, enjoying the laughing company of the night. Only we three grace this house with life and music, everyone else has gone to work.

Decisions are easily made, but I'm again defeated.

I'll sleep instead and lucidly march the outdoors in dream.

Leafless trees twist their arms to a sky segmented with cloud tones of blue to grey in the silver haze of half-past seven. Trunks spiral upward in a permanent stance of tortured agony, bending and resting their wary tree souls to the cold dirt that clothes their roots. Snaking strands thirsting for mother nourishment from that earth shared with winter grass, sparse in a pallid shade of ailed green, with bushes windblown and bare.

I tasted Winter's kiss last night, his drear danced upon my face, his cold gusts hugged my frame that stood defiant to greet him with open arms and spread fingers as he arrived to stay awhile. His touch goosebumps; a caress so icy that it chills my blood to a steady pace and my breath to five second intervals. It felt as if he could hoist me up and allow me to soar within his all-traversing body, shimmering like the icy frost of morning rooftops. To look down upon mankind and laugh with the knowledge and humor of my dear friend who saw through me a mind to teach, an able body that would appreciate his insight and twenty-five degree breath.

Nearly frozen still but peaceful and calm, my shallow exhales taint his with temporary clouds of faux-smoke. To be callow and pretend a cigarette would be most uncouth, all-knowing he can shun the most innocent intent with a scoff and cold shoulder.

Oh, but he will nurture!

With his glacial bite he can chisel mountains of ice, a flick of a finger garnishes entire buildings in icicles, his delicate wisps of hair drape the sky in an azure blue, a gleam in his frozen eye prospects the advent hope of snow on the Texas horizon. He'll tease with sleet, torment with frozen dew upon shaded lawns, no one can persuade otherwise, he savors our eager squirm.

He breathes me and you, smiles with the sun and lurks with the moon, all-arrogant, numb of emotion, but forevermore amorous in bringing us all closer.

I haven't been home since Friday, but once I arrive I depart again; following my growling stomach I swam through overgrown ditch bristles and combed the bowing field grass, short, golden strands like European arm hair. Stumbling over unseen rocks hidden under the mass of dry grass, I can hardly keep balanced but still trek on through, spreading curtains of sharp leaves slicing at sleeved forearms. The secret is in short strokes, careful footing and a practiced eye; without I'd be swallowed whole, spit out in to another dimension where food is soap or hunger is only imagined.

The journey isn't long as it is treacherous; the ocean of brush gives way to massive rock formations leading to paved roads. I would have to climb down to climb up and instead I skim around, breaking through branches that catch locks of my hair and poke at my clothing. A dam of dead branches crunch under foot, my hopes of their stability strengthen with each step forward. A slip breaks a foundation log, I jump to the hard ground goal and watch the dirt and dead wood sink, an inward sigh of human interference. I check for stray twigs in my hair and pluck them out, brush off the dirt on my pants then continue, my path now clear ahead.

Barbed wire, an obstacle of sorts, savagely twists in to a fence waist-high and rusted. Do I climb over? Risk a thigh-jab and tetanus shot? Of course not, I simply walk the length of the fence until I spot a gap large enough to fit through. I do so cautiously, making sure my bag and I don't catch a spike.

Invincible, the wind on my face whispers my prize and my eyes can see it clear in the distance; a cheap meal to service my gut and pocketbook wisely. The red-roofed establishment buzzes with minivans and SUVs, electric menu, drive-thru kitchen. They'll all ride in feasted excitement, scarfing burgers, their crumb-chins singing to top ten radio sunday favorite. Slipped grips on greased steering wheel, chubby fingers licked clean of any morsel now fumbling plastic toys soon to be found forgotten under car seats.

It's so easy! The mess is contained, no pots or pans, no table-babble.

I'll eat in the comfort of the restful booth seat, taking bite breaks for water sipped from a flimsy straw. Chicken burger, my hero, my stomach once gurgled for you and now you've emerged and pleased me so, filled me with the energy I had lost in the conquest for your bald bread head.

How do you contain so much delight?

You're a scheme. You dollar-monger.

But it's okay,

I'll forgive you.

Adverse effects with the bone-cold air seeping from damp insides, decreasing by the minute, like something coming closer. It already had forced me to slip on a cotton sweater and hood from the shirt under, the thin fabric surprisingly succeeding in heating my ears.

In my focused effort at writing, I warm, and the chill retreats back to its cavernous chambers. Though on my face, I can still feel the cold pace like breath, the tunnel sighing sadness. There's exception of working legs dosing off and the rippled tunnel metal embedding its collected dirt in the seat of my dark jeans.

A careful obsessing begins with the aluminum...how I can make the caked clay-dirt out in the gutter light. I can figure the dusty leavings and the effect when brushed off, a fade in.

I move to the concrete enclave where I can stretch my legs out and bathe in the subdued past-noon sunbeams. And its better, the dust now somewhat replaced with scattered trash within fallen leaves. Mostly comprised of candy wrappers, as I can see around me, but to my left leg there lay a crushed-down tuna can and a strange green mass of leaves wrapped in to a one-inch-round ball that may have been a fine brussels sprout in its day. It sits on two leaves topping a piece of brown beer bottle, broken to hear its shatter, the scream of its form combustion. Water begins to pour from the side I faced; it cascaded and flowed directly down a slope in to a maintained puddle.

With cautionary mind, I'd return back to the bitter tunnel mouth, knowing a good day to be outside when there was one and that when people see their neighbors out washing their car or simply watering, it encourages them to do the same. When I sit back to sponge dirt, I remove my headphones in order to listen to the streaming trickle. It's rushing, the sound of a small spring that you would find if you peeled your ears to a walk's nature. The puddle becomes soapy, foam forms in to swirling patches, creating bubbled islands enveloping floating leaves and an empty twizzler wrap.

Voices hail from above, a pair of boys peeking through the gutter, having followed the water, to fathom its triumphant babble. I'm sighing relief, grateful of my return to the tunnel maw, an otherwise risk of discovery.

I bet the light peeks just enough to reflect the spray-painted neon in to their wanting retinas.

"Why'd you think people do down there and write?" Prepubescent chimes, and I smile, praising verbal irony, while the other speaks up.

"Don't know, Let’s go get Eli and your basketball."

Watching the advancing tourists in multitudes, hidden eyes lingering on us locals anticipating transport. They, meandering throughout the concrete guidelines, meeting my glances with a shy elderly smile, visors shade their vision since saved by reflecting sunglasses. Doling out dollars kept to be shupped inside registers by trade for quality.

My tongue is held by these moments as a backdrop. The face in the crowd won’t speak, only cares to stare with empty intent as amusing lives stroll past with pocket books to bear. Money could be spared but its false purpose cries clear as spent and exchanged abandonment would shriek in one’s ear. Deaf in that right, they wander bleak faced and only dependent on the sight, dim under pricy pair of tinted glass, canceling out the day’s light. Focused on the trusty map, their feet moving inches with time to trace the line established as the riverwalk way. While behind the locals scorch, stuck after mass brotherhood of Bermuda khaki shorts. Argument announced under bearded breaths, confusing as carousing each corner, weary eyes squinting at street signs.

I would smirk, but that twist targets attention and elusive is the name of the game.

Any quirk can shirk my blend, the isolated dame.

I came to where the crawdads once met, where the water trickled down slabs of stacked rocks, where they hid and rejoiced in peace. Now (*) this is a river construction site with long tubes carrying water from an unknown underground aquifer. Soon this will be extended and decorated; tourists will stomp and litter the sidewalks where dirt used to give home to life. Bleak concrete will snake around this city and choke the serenity nature blessed it with.

Until final touches are made, I will stumble over loose rocks to sit before the calming ebb of this man-made river. That bike cop can stare all he wants; I do no harm in attempting to beautify my surroundings with words. He cannot arrest me for enjoying this world as it is and not through any device like he and half the known population do. I won't be bitter though, because I know out there amongst trees and calm breezes, meaning can be found. Stooping over me will do no service, I'll excuse you. Go patrol and find nothing but those fast wind gusts on your face as you pedal along for action. As for me, I'm complete and afloat on my way down that river bend.

(* The ground is scattered with craw-claws, quaint, flawlessly sprinkled around the earth to crunch with each stepfall. Squirrels come to munch off the shell like an acorn, and scarf away its tendered claw meat. They soon scurry up trees of formidable housing and sleep in their knot-hole, full and eased. Birds nestle in to coves between branches, twig-paneled, insulated with gathered preening products fluffed to warm hatchlings on Texas autumn nights. Until sweet symphony mornings, they rise to sing in sync with the dawn and those colors painted in the early sky. Our sun will smile overhead to wake unshaded window lives cuddled in cotton sheets over downy comforters. Like me at 7:25, alarmed with tired eyes.)