ii.  ^{_{where is my mind??}}

                ^{_{ah, a reckless freedom with many costs.
       maybe she shouldn’t have S I N N E D.}}

^{_{she knew IT was the stuff which INSANITY is made from, & had turned her destiny as if something else were controlling her will. she found herself upright on a very narrow line between madness & emptiness & when the time came for her to lose balance, she lurched toward emptiness & fell on the side of HIS choice ( madness ).}} 

iii. ^{_{highway to hell.}}

^{_{• her car heater is barely making a dent in the early morning cold, but she has to stop when she sees flashing lights & crossing guards come down through the half-scraped frost on her windshield. the train crawls slowly by, steam rising from the still-hot aconite to form indistinct shapes in the dim light. through the window cracked open she flicks her cigarette ash & thinks she hears faint cries of “mama?” the shapes dissipate as the train rolls by.}}

^{_{• she travels down back roads and gets the feeling she’s seen that house before a couple miles back.}}

^{_{• the corn goes on forever when she drives, dark leaves reaching to the sky. to wander in the corn fields is to be lost forever. there are things in the corn fields, always only seen from the corner of one’s eye.}}

^{_{• vampires who smoke clove cigs in church parking lots & try to ignore their hunger pains as they watch students from the college in the next town over stumbling out of local bar, alcohol in their bloodstream.}}

^{_{• demons with yellow eyes and bloody teeth walking along deserted highways in the early hours of the morning, their pupils reflecting the headlights of cars with passengers who feel fear grip their hearts as they pass by.}}

^{_{• witches who wear muddy boots & garage sale rings and who always carry salt in their bags, who drink river water & pour circles of whiskey on the underbrush & feel hundreds of hands on their skin}}

^{_{•  ghosts who dwell in the basements of abandoned farmhouses and rip old wallpaper from the decaying walls with misty fingers and trance-like eyes}}

^{_{•  HELL IS REAL signs every hundred miles going down i-75.  hell is real; mrs. bennett was brewing it in the still behind her shed & traded it for apples the size & color of fresh hearts.}}  

^{_{• she wonders if that stag waited all it’s life by the road knowing that one day, she would be there. it leaped forward as if in ecstasy into her vehicle’s path before rolling to the side of the road. dead on impact.}}

^{_{• the jackalope is real the locals all insist, smiling behind their hands and giggling in private. only one old man looked afraid, warning her of the dangers. it’s him that she believed, his eyes telling a story that could only be true.}} 

^{_{• guns don’t kill people, bad poker hands do.}}

^{_{• a herd of motorcyclists move down the highway as one, & she wonders watching them all go by, if this was what it sounded like when the buffalo stampeded through the hills away from their hunters.}}

^{_{• she has to stop for coffee in the middle of the night. there are train tracks next to the old gas station & she hears a foghorn distantly, but no train ever comes.}} 

^{_{• everyone tells their kids not to make eye contact with the bland-faced strangers at highway rest stops—the tall, gangly men & women stretched too thin and who grow towards the sun, like the corn.}}

^{_{•  this town is old and tired. a new billboard looms over her as she pulls into the bar: DETOX OR DIE . the woman who takes her order smiles, exposing her meth mouth. its patrons are all on their last leg, some of them falling faster than others.}}

^{_{• in the summer, there is the smell of grilling meat in the air, enough to make someone’s mouth water ( or stomach turn, if they’re a vegetarian ) but this is independent of location where anyone is actually grilling.  no one knows where the clouds of meat-smell are coming from, or what is actually being cooked & no one complains about much, other than the lack of a belly full of undigested meat.}}

^{_{•  possum-eyes watch her at night, red in headlights & flashlights; sometimes they seem too high above the ground, even in the fields, where there are no trees.}}

^{_{• red dirt covers everything. compasses do not work. the needles spin round & round. she’s told tourists go into the woods, but never come out. tourists keep coming though, their shiny white cars turning orange over time, rust meeting with rust.}}

^{_{• while taking a walk at 11 pm, she suddenly becomes aware of the celestial beings that seemed to engulf the quietness of the streets around her & rain like shooting stars from the sky.}}

^{_{• she’s surrounded by faith, different churches, hosts of crucifixions & gods & books & no one can seem to agree on anything besides two things - hell, and the power of the blood. whose blood is still debated.}}