To leave a place

It starts with a hum

at your feet 

so soft, at first you can barely make out a sound but you feel it 

A tickle 

on the soft side of your foot - the underbelly, the delicate, the sensitive spot that skims over the ground as you step

It's your floating part

The hum starts there

vibrating 

in the space between the softness and the hard ground

If only it could stay in that place

but your feet are too delicate, fragile too soft 

And so you move 

and the hum grows 

Tracing the veins up your legs 

it's louder 

past calves over knee caps tip-toeing by thighs  

resting for a moment 

Echoing off the chambers of a vacant cavity 

Filling you with warmth and song and then

And then

Slam. The gut. 

The hum, fierce and rapid, fills every crevice, swell, hill, curve, corner, every turn rushing through you like 

Wildfire

Scorching the breath from your lungs - 

deafening, suffocating - it flushes through your body

hot

Up Up Up

Until you engulf, red-faced flushed in the hum haze

It's all you can hear

The hum

You clench your fists tight

Root your feet hard

Shut your eyes and 

Breathe out

Breathe out 

Breathe out 

Breathe 

in

the

hum 

And weave it through the branches of your lungs - secure behind the ribcage - safe near the heart - entwined in you - with you 

quiet.

And now, when you breathe

Your chest heaves with the dance of a hum swaying

This is what it is to leave

It starts with a hum