Moving through the city
though I’ve spent
my whole life
leaping skirting and sprinting
up around and through
these tangled forests of
steel glass and tubes —
an incessant ringing
has been alarming
inside me
muffled and buried and
sunk deep inside
my chest
distant
like a faraway
fire
persistent —
a reminder
of how I really
don't belong
here.

The story of humanity
is the story of
migration
from the wood to
the hood
all of it
in a geological
blink
lurching us forward
yet leaving our hearts
in limbo
halfway between
the Eastside
and Eden.

Which goes some ways
I guess
to explaining this
dull persistent
ache
this desperate
longing for the
unmade
this violent urge
to abandon my car in traffic
and flee —
back to the hinterlands
to feed off the
unsullied soil
to consume
nature
without commercial
interruption.

That is of course
until I spent my
first night
under these laughing stars
beside this cackling flame
I built proudly with
my own city-softened hands
that is until
I rest my head on this
cold hard ground
I can hear the strange
awful sounds
of the ancient forest
moving in
closer
closer
closer
to swallow me
whole.

That is when
the night finally
gives way
and morning the sun
stikes me
clear as day —
becoming one with
nature
really means becoming
prey.

Biopihilia

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