This is a self-contained Dreamland concoction. 

Conceived during a 5-mile run. As runs go, a tough run. Seven downhill-uphill laps around Section 8.  Started out lamenting my unsolicited solitude. Ended up just feeling tough. Just tough.  Like a, if needed, terrorist assassin . Like a once-tortured wild animal hardened to duress.  Like the little engine who could.  And did.

I did. I sprinted at the end.

(No, wait…I didn’t really—I merely speeded up.  Okay.  Going to leave the laptop alone for a minute and finish this run the right way.  Excuse me, please. …

And an uphill sprint, at that.

Typical February day just south of the north coast of Lake Erie. Patches of snow are scattered about like blotches of rash on a baby’s ass.  Except the rash is red.  And the snow is cold.  And the ivy on the graves of the deceased still clings as it has always clung.  All in all, a very anti-valetine-ory display: no lovers walking hand-in-hand, no flowers like faces floating out of the ground, only predatory birds criss-crossing the sky scanning for tender future morsels to pluck upon.

~a Dreamland bird mausoleum~

Live like a Hawk.  Die like a Hawk.  Outside looking in, and through, the doom of death.