She discovered the catharsis
Of talking to herself, long ago
When she began to retreat
Into her mind, winding through spirals,
A nautilus shell.
A beautiful friend for each corner she turned,
Statues breathing stale dust,
Speaking her echoes.
Everything she sees is a doorway
To fall through, back into her shell.
Stone hands grip her own, leading her
Through gardens fresh with the scent
Of new plastic.
She lies there, wreathed in dead dreams
To stare at a drugged sun
In a torrid sky
And wonder why
She likes it here so much.
The tired sun melts
Into lurid chartreuse,
A keening color, screeching curses
Swallowed by a cosmic sea.
Silence is expanding, its own universe,
Drinking her atoms,
Quietly shredding her.
Her shadow is not her own,
And it has friends.
She bites down on cold panic,
The sharp shock of reality
Brilliant as a glacial gale.
She opens her eyes to pristine sunlight
And birdsong.
