Terror: Impermanence

Do you remember:

7 years old,

waking up

to pastel patterned walls

mildly stained carpet

artwork in crayon

waking

to your flowers print fleece pants

cold and stuck to your legs

and the terror:

wordless,

I can name it now

yet it still slips claws between my

ribcage. cold, icy, vicegrip

talons tug and squeeze:

a silent gape of

Is This How We Evanesce

the earth rising up

to its full height and

showing its teeth, finally,

in cool mild sweet and gray

dusk light making shadow puppets

with walls

ordinary plaster and paint

yet they rise up, too,

and she doesn't spare a thought

for the soul (if it is)

Do you remember?

The vacuum sucks out

our hearts and

yet it must not be the first—

how could this be, the first—

how could this be the only?

A flicker of flame and dark and

smattering of love

and then nothing, forever

nothing, as it always was?

Put your ear buds back in

(ignore ignore ignore and swallow and spit)

and go back to sleep

pile up comforters deep

with your scent

and drink it in and say:

I be—I am—I will—

I exist, for now