i t ’ s  a l m o s t  l i k e  c u l t u r e  s h o c k , i  c a n  s m e l l  t h e  t r e e s  a g a i n

Last night I left the sheets in the wash and fell asleep on the mattress. My dreams were stripped bare. I awoke at 3:37am and wandered outside; the air was actually cool. That smell! It was back, that particular seasonal smell perched on the cusp of summer and autumn. I would bottle it if I could (along with its winter-to-spring analogue).

I’ve been spending far too much time on playgrounds lately. For some reason, returning to painting demands that I act like a five year old again, at least within the confines of my own imagination. I want to run with fistfuls of dripping paintbrushes, trailing them across everything in sight. I drop the brushes and keep running and running and running and running. Then stop. A crack, a pop, and just like that I’m gone again. A never-ending game of tag. The notion of anywhere but here rears its head yet again. It’s not 2001. I’m not getting older. I don’t live here, I don’t live anywhere.

This must be a dream, I thought, as the sweet scent of nitrous oxide filled the air.