anaerobic

everywhere you turn

there are people arguing for their limitations

while at the same time

with the same words

working to justify their existence

though it may not seem so,

listen carefully

and you will inevitably hear

in all but the rarest of cases

the undertones

of a long, slow burn

below the crackle & hiss

of the moment manifest

that speaks of a resignation

so deep

it carves kilns from dreams

across the turnover

of lifetimes

but that is the nature of fear

—it saturates everything so thoroughly,

so slowly

it seems, almost

to be without time at all

and when you give in

and allow even an inch

it begins replacing

the original clarity within

—once a doorway, open to the air,

now a window, so clear

it's as if

the glass

is not there, at all

and it's this

they're trying to convince you of

as they speak in tongues

that rise above the whispering winds

fading the soft spaces

you remain relating in

—the same places

where they, too,

once nourished

their tiny pink lungs

listen too long

and you will come to witness,

and take part in,

the lifelong process

of replacement,

subtle as it is

—limits will begin to condense

as ‘fact’

and ‘truth’

and you will notice your body, then

from outside of it

and still further away

as it ages

eventually

losing even the memory

of those long, warm days

where you lay

in fields

green and serene

gazing

into a dreamer's sky,

and believing,

in all your naivety 

in nothing other

than a feeling

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Image: Chihiro