Chapter Text
On my knees I am breathing in
A haze,
White, gray, colorless,
Nameless,
Blank and vast dunes
Dotted with jagged stones,
Ashes remembered,
Forgotten,
Forgetting.
Forgetting, ephemeral,
Smoke rising from fallen temples
Of despairing goddesses,
Leaning cracked Ionian columns
Partway buried,
Dust storms passing,
Leaving,
Leaving no voice,
No song.
Breathing. Just breathing.
Catching my breath.
Stand. Run.
Running.
Running,
Running forward,
Onward, away from a hand
Whose touch was warm ember,
Summer evening joy,
Now cold and jagged as stone.
Running farther,
Deeper,
Into the white,
The gray,
Distanced from everything,
Numb.
Away from the hospital wards,
IV lines,
Sterile plastic and unfeeling steel,
Emotionless electronics,
A loving life measured away to nothingness,
Nothing.
No color,
No voice,
Numb.
No love,
No song,
Numb.
