I Wait softly, stage left. Around me flurried feet Patter, clatter around set In small cyclones, whirling Round small practiced arcs. I wait, dread climbing bones Like stepladders while all of My toes are curled ribbons And my hands gather silk. Slowly, clocks tick down; The time drags wearily.
I wait hastily for a glimpse of my future.
My breath comes in shallow waves, chest rising and falling in panicked peaks. Sweat clings to the palms of my hands, glues the fabric of my shirt onto my back. I pace through a sterile white facility. Enclosed in this building is nothing more, nothing less than a vision of how I die. A vision of the entryway to beyond, the opening to infinity, the scene in which I gasp my last breath of air and cough my soul out of my body.
Few others bother to look at what lies ahead. I do now because I cannot ensnare the curiosity that runs rampant in my mind like a frightened creature.
I do not hesitate when my name is called forth.
The concoction is smeared across my eyelids by gloved hands, a clear, smooth oil that chills every bit of skin it comes in contact with. It weighs down on my eyes with a heaviness it shouldn't have.
I'm out before I can even let my mind loose to wander.
I feel my body falling, sliding, my hands scrabbling for purchase on weathered, decayed soil. I'm helpless until the incline spits me up onto level ground. I groan. My eyes beam open to a tangled mass of deep green leaves and gnarled vines- a forest. Bright orchids bloom across the terrain like ships dotting a harbor.
I push my way through the thickly woven greenery, headed nowhere. Gradually, gradually, the trees grow more sparse, until I happen upon a small clearing framed by curling ferns.
At the center of the clearing sits a cobblestone well, a clock perched on its edges, hands prodding ten and two. As I inch closer and closer to the structure, it flickers and glimmers like a mirage. Grisly scenes of death shimmer in its place- a neck tightly gripped by a fraying rope, a spatter of blood on a windshield, a knife swimming in a young man's chest. The gruesome succession of images flies by faster, faster, until at last it stops at a single picture.
I squint, stare, gape at the portrait that appears. A crimson fire rages, devours a forest of trees, turning all to blackened stumps. A corpse lies in front, its skin badly burned and charred. And beside it- the cobblestone well that had been sitting in front of me not seconds ago.
My eyes shoot open in the spotless white facility. I collapse to the ground, my future no longer a mystery.
Us, apart- Seven billion loose ends of string Bordering a roughly knitted quilt, Pieces left unstrung, forgotten, Maiden hand moving on.
A mile’s length of sand On charred, abandoned beach, Each grain a lonely planet Among a universe filled with too many more.
But us, together- Thirty thousand strands woven tightly in a knot, Thirty thousand knots embroidered into a design, Each miniscule length of string Only a piece of something greater.
We are a writhing, heaving mass, A thundercloud marching across angry skies, Not seven billion drops of rain But a single pattern dancing in the air.
Blood of my body And veins of my heart, Wind in my sails And house on my dirt,
Your creeping vines Ensnare my limbs, They tangle round close, Envelop my skin.
You are my rock, My Philosopher’s stone, My gentle Midas, Turn me to gold.
Quench my fire, Spark my thirst, Step lightly now, My heart will burst,
Erode my mountains With endless streams, My whole soul floats On geyser steam.
Let me drown In quicksand you, Devour me And I shall too.
I never was an early riser. But to be woken by the sun, With cool white glow against heavy lids, Was a waking dream of mine.
I never was the morning bird, But instead the proverbial worm, Devoured by the feathered thing Who’d risen with the sun.
I long to be the eager flower That blooms at dawn’s first breath, To experience what happens then, When sun bursts from horizon.
