Bilbo: Can you promise that I will come back?
Gandalf: No, and if you do, you will not be 
the same. 
-The Hobbit film

cuddled in the back of a bouncing bus,
every creak and punched-out pothole in
the road like a passport stamp or a crossword
of Morse code, makes me cross-eyed trying
to make sense of how
time
flows into the sky like the lights that drip off the
shrugs of the mountains that are yawning and
falling asleep under cloudy sunsets.
leathery dog noses press against my hand,
wet,
ocean dipping in and out under a hammock
held together with strings that stagger under weight
&  snap under a hot sun & over black sand.
cradled dreams drown
like Rockabye Baby in the Treetop,
falling from heights & 2004 pencil sketches
and bucket list bargains & pre-packaged
promises I crocheted into the
scarf that strangles me-

&
home
is
not
where
I
left
it