Isolation

Illustrated by Samantha Fulton. 

Years before tomorrow I find myself at a mountaintop
counting each wind-withered peak

when a frost-bitten thorn drags me down 
over mossy crags and parched straw reeds.

The coldness delights and the grainy pools suffice and
a burgeoning hunger grows inside and lurches forth:

“Give me that pen, that paper too!” – ghosts don’t heed to our pleas;
but the ink spills all over her gentle pages and —

Fuck. 

“Gather your senses!” — they are angels now, not 
cadaverous spirits beckoning over linen canyons to my aid,

unravelling the blinds and inviting the outside in —
my hand thrusts out in rebellious eclipse before 

the sunshine sifts the somber motes as they fall in soft repose:
deep into the floating night, my day has just begun