Wednesday 18 September 2019

Barometre, post-deluge.

I miss the way you felt to breathe
And it fills me with despair
Stratosphere
You fill my lungs and take away the air
(I'm sorry, Sam but here's what I have for you today.)

 I am a thousand years and a day old. The line that forms between my brows when I weep has deepened into a river carving a path through my alabaster flesh. I stand on the edge of the cliff each morning as the sun rises over my left shoulder, highlighting my black clothing from my neck to the tips of my toes. It's as if life was a dress rehearsal for this time in my life, grief being a feeling I never thought I would touch with both hands, let alone cling to in the face of every last breath by this Collective to knock me off. I would let go but then I might fall, and I'll never let that happen again.

I'm a tiny apple-doll. A gnome whose worries expand and contract like a iron lung, heavy and imposing, frightening, this breath of mine shallow and panicked.

I don't know what I'm doing here.

Do you?