Paper Crumb Trails

I call them paper crumb trails. 

The little fragments of words and thoughts I put down when I feel like a tea cup that is overfull.
They are the parts that run down the edges and soak into the ground 

or the nibbles of my life’s cookie that fall away and land where I go 

and where I stay. 

I let them fall, or even scatter them out in an act of intentional mess making. 

Afterward I feel satisfied and settled, but it leaves a bigger swath of crumbs to contend with, and lately, when I look around I can no longer ignore them. 

They are everywhere.  In books, some half empty and full. In the top filing drawer. In the wardrobe in a brown paper bag, in a studio cabinet across town. In the basement, the mail, my mind, the ether...

I am surrounded by my own trail of crumbs, 

and they are waiting for me to follow them.