run_away nom i found a doll once in an old caravan in a forest on an island it seemed abandoned part of the landscape a century of weeds tangling the spokes of wooden wheels the taste of old roads and foreign towns something so familiar crying hinges the painted doors swung open entering into this mystery i was so frightened the dust made me wonder why it was untouched boxes and books costumes treasures i was suspicious of ghostly diseases like some mummy curse along with trinkets i found a cloth doll naked with a wonderfully simple coloured yarn stitched smile my friend he found an empty brass bird's cage we were laughing amazed did it once keep a bird? who had sewn the smile on this face how long had it been dead in these cotton woods? heard a shuffle in the green bushes parting a man who was yelling at me yelling at me yelling at me such anger dark hair red eyes steaming smoke from ears clutching the doll i jumped and i ran scattering children jumping running crazed man chasing yelling stop! stop there! who goes there! i ran and i ran all the way home till i got to my room and i found a place to hide under the bed hide with the doll i had rescued from that scary man not soon after the neighbour-father of the boy i'd been with came by to the door to tell me his son had just come home carrying a man on the wind behind him demanding the return of everything stolen he knew we'd taken he told me i'd better fess up cause i was in trouble said he but the man wasn't evil even if i was scared he was just sick needed a home to stay in couldn't travel anymore so i told the truth and i lied i didn't know it was anyone's when i found it i found it was mine had i known i would have asked for a name and a story i gave him what was in my pockets but i said i was sorry i had lost the doll running past the waterfall where the yellow cougar was heard hissing i said i'd lost the doll running that i'd dropped her in the forest, which was true but i didn't tell him how i picked her up cleaned her cloth skin brought her home gave her a name dressed her in the finest scraps of discarded clothes turned shimmering gowns how i swore i wouldn't leave her to waste away in dust without love children belong to dolls i declared with self-convincing reasons i was too scared to return her even if i loved the caravan 031015 ... nom holy world to see knowhere to go lost on the runway 031017 ... nom they taught her how to read the tarot because they loved her hair and they wanted to take her with them and likely she would've gone but they knew she needed to be with her mother i have learned so many things from her sometimes i wish i could go find them in my dreams where their wagons roll in the eastern mountains they breathe air like an extinct species in the deep forgotten forests they are the ghosts of shadows told tale from long ago feathery frolic of birch branches singing when the wind plays breeze with their hands we could read our fortunes from their leaves dancing in the light of the hunter's moon in the forest where friends meet and roads fade from view 031017 ... autumn why do you run from the sound of my voice? from the beat of my heart? the touch of my fingertips? why did you run away? 041001 ... crOwl loved this. well written. 041230 ... monee mine? or autumn's? or all of it? i don't know, but thanks,... if you meant: what i wrote. 041231 ... monee my friend is dead now. i still remember him. i still have that doll. it's in my living room. 041231 what's it to you? who go blather from