mai-dreambox

The leaves smell Like pepper, The drink, not much like that. The flavor, best worn with cream. Sip slowly, Find a cloak of calm To cover you close to your cup And warmly wake To a world of coy wonder.

It’s a heavy leather bag, old-looking and maybe not actual leather considering it has a worn silken tag just inside that had at one point read ‘made on Sarayel.’ The spray-painted letters on the outside (long-since worn suede from constant use) said his first initial and his last name and the ID number that was tattooed on the underside of his left wrist. Inside the bag there’s a pad of paper, each leaf stiff on its own and unbendable all together (looking at it he thinks of the fable about the father and his two sons and the bundle of sticks), that he draws on. The case of cheap charcoals is in there too, ends sticky fro

You always make sure to take the time to every once in a while take an hour out of the day, sit down with a book – an old, familiar one with covers worn in familiar places from bored fingers – and just enjoy it. Throughout the bustle of life the single most comfortable chair that you own has wound up in the corner of the living room, facing all of the room but not seeing any of it, wrapped up in the story the way you are. Someone could walk into your home and start cooking dinner in your kitchen, and you wouldn’t look up and out of the world you’ve read yourself into. It’s just you and the imaginative universe held in

Your house is old, old and settling into its roots at long last, and it makes noise at night. No, maybe it makes noise all the time, but the creak of the floorboards rubbing against each other (un-muffled now you took out the carpet) is never louder than at night, on your way to bed. You invent reasons to keep from having to go down the hall for as long as possible; you need to check your email, or the dog needs to go outside, or you smell something funny in the kitchen, or maybe you should sleep on the couch tonight because your bedroom window won’t close… but that last one would make you walk down the hall anyway, so eventually yo

When it rains, good and hard like it sometimes needs to after a dry spell, something leaves the air. It’s the impurities that wind up there; exhaust fumes and smog and day-in, day-out evil that evaporates out of people when they fall into bed. All those things get sucked up into the rain and drift away into the Earth, and all you can smell is the dead grass, the dry-soggy smell of pavement, all you can hear for miles around is the rain, even if there’s someone walking alongside you. Stick out your tongue and catch a droplet and all you taste is rainwater, clean like nothing else. Look up into the sky at the rain coming down and blin

There is a tree that grows dreams. It grows them like leaves, or like flowers or fruit. But it grows those, too; it's a normal tree, or it would be if never a conscious being had lived in the Universe. Few people know about this tree. Close to none. The people in the history of the world who have had the fleeting chance to run their fingers through the red ribbons of dreams flowing in a numinous wind from the tall branches that seem to, or maybe do, stretch all the way to the ends of space, number thirteen all told. It’s possible there won’t be another before humanity loses Earth. This tree collects the hopes that people have

I hear my friend’s footsteps approach, She stops, perfect silence once more. Inhale – my nose nearly freezes, Exhale – cloud of frosted warm air. Cold, wet, my blue mittens soaked through, Snowball fight has long since ended. The silence so intense it hurts, It makes me huff and puff and stomp. In the end we leave the outdoors, Head inside to drink hot cider. My dog goes chasing illusions, Out into the snowy backyard.