New Witching Hour

There's a strength in the palms of my hands.

And I sit in awe of it.

A short lifetime of climbing my way up and through.

Gifted and abused are my fingers.

Peppered with calluses and scars.

And I find I like it, this simple fact about myself.

It could have been true of a lot of people.

But in this moment it is my truth

Stop telling me I have to be pure, to be worth it.

I don't consider myself particularly religious.

But I think I might understand why rural areas are so full of superstition.

Not out of an antiquated idea of ignorance.

But because if you've ever seen dawn bleed red into the dying breath of a bright white night, then you'd know God too.

I was told I needed to learn to sit with my grief. to hold its hand and mother it. to allow it to exist within me.

But I don't think I can mother anything, not even myself. I sit beside my grief, hand in hand. We're staring at each other. both wondering why we're here.

I was wrong. The clouds are moving. Only slower than me.

They've cleared the other side of the trees now.

And when I can breathe again, so will I.

It's sun down now. The early stages of it, where the sky is still full of light and color. The clouds are thick an mountinous. And completely still in the sky.

The big lumbering breaths are blushed pink around the edges. Deep scores of grey over every curve and crevice. Dense and almost palpable.

It looks like a painted back drop.

And I have no where else to look.

When you grow up a certain way, you may know what the cat feels when it shies from your hand

Matter cannot be created or destroyed.

that's the rule of the universe.

You've always existed in some way.

and no matter how many times you get blown apart;

The gravity of your atoms will drag you back together.

Tearing your self apart is futile.

It's nuclear fission.

You only salt the earth in your despair.

Tear open the black hole just for the gravity well to drag you under.

The only escape is expansion.

You called me Atlas and pressed the weight down on my shoulders.

Time has passed but I'm not better, just older.

What I wouldnt give to feel the static in my limbs again.

For as much as it makes me jump and twitch at least I can move.

For as distracting as my restlessness is at least I am not still.

Not frozen by the empty space between my skin and my bones.

Left hollow by the absence of motivation; Of want for anything.

If you hurt over every little thing, all you'll ever do is hurt