drowned in spirit,

I'd stamped out all the smoke till it sank into the heart as the sweat clung to my neck, gripped the backs of my thighs, laughing giddily at the dull beggars stopping cars at traffic lights with outstretched fingers. another peddling with a cart searching for treasure in bins scattered around the town. my kinda spirit. take it all on yourself, son and let it be broken only from your own hands.
I had written little in the two weeks on the road. not one word I wrote would have been for me anyway. or maybe it all is. writing to her to intoxicate the blood with some mist of clarity.
a small girl follows us down the road with her hands outstretched, relentless. her lines, repeated over and over coil into my fingernails, digging into my side, bag hunched over my back, stumbling out of the city.
its the first time that I have ever been in a country that I barely knew existed. like the moldova tintin spoke of decades ago, imaginary lands that become real. everything you think of is true, amigo. everything is wild. the sky scalps the falling orange sun. we can drink the water here. there are no landmines till serbia. that is an elation in itself. when was the last time you tried to find your bed and found a WARNING LANDMINES sign instead? croatia sucking us dry..don't take it all..
A truck pulls over, going 50km north.
Tunnels carved from the rock. Jagged pieces hanging down as daggers about to pierce the top of the truck. Sharp turns without barriers.
20km and nightfall, four hours of driving.t us continue...okay..but I must throw the bottle...oh...my impulses...they coexist with the need to breathe..
Tomatoes and cheese. Vinegar and bread. Samouka till my eyes can't bear the weight and crash out onto the upper bed. Steaming coffee. Poached eggs and bread out on the mountain. Little white flowers floating in the air around us.
He has the need to leave parts of himself everywhere.
Not the truck, please..but I must throw everything! its as the impulse to breathe..
the side of the mountain left scattered with bulgarian packaging.

Walking the border, tearing holes into the gut, takes courage to be kind to yourself, to lick up everything with creativity, to take everything in, to laugh in the face of border police without a twitch of the mouth...stern as a hawk...be everything at once. nomans land for 2km, and back into the truck on the otherside, into war ravaged serbia where everyones eyes seem to be be broken apart, slightly, as if covered by mountains and mountains of snow.