My weathered boots settle on dust
I stand at a crossroads.
Wanderlust whetted by a decadent feast
proffered by the horizon:
Mountains like blackened fingers
grazing the sky, reminding all of their worth.
Or, like jagged, decaying teeth
expelling a curling sigh of red
set to gorge on what slips between the cracks.
Further, still, my eyes spy crabgrass
stretching through pebbles
beckoning with its crusted fingers
drawing my gaze towards pearl formations bathed
in a dewy haze of grey.
The mountain fog pulses like the heart throbbing in my throat.
Another way, cosmic warmth splits the last vestige of darkness
Dawn blinking into being
I mimic the gesture, cupping a callused hand over my eyes
the morning haze so violently bright
for filaments of light easily irritate
if one's eyes grow wider than their appetite.
Tilting my head just a little
I glimpse arboreal bliss.
Ancient and slender, freckled with toxic brightness
chirrups and flowers curling through the foliage like a fog
as mephitic as the last plate served.
Further in the darkness,
a silvery thrum of energy roils within.
Subtle, moonlit, beautiful -
I feel a ghostly breath prickle the hairs on my neck
and cold fingers massaging paranoia into my spine.
Last, a cacophonic whirl of green
butted against pockmarked mud.
Snakes cinch less tightly here
but they suffocate, all the same.
Pitfalls.
Misplace, misstep, a fate too quickly sealed
It's a blessing I do not dwell on mistakes -
Yet here I stand in the dust
Silence settles over everything,
a deafening, terrifying nothingness,
killing - not quenching - my appetite.





Penned by my hand on the 13th of Aeguary, in the year 681 AF.