Do you think Atlas floated when the world at last fell away from his fingers?

Maybe he suddenly felt as weightless as the lightening sky above him.

He might have sunk to his knees and the earth would have trembled like his shaking shoulders.

Or…

Just perhaps,

Days later the Titan would be sitting alone in the world he had protected,

And realize that the breeze carried with it a sigh of relief.

Shadow lingers

Like memories it clings

Gone before I'm aware.

Flickering.

Like frantic fireflies

My shadows dance on light

Behind my eyes.

Mesmerizing.

Arachne took her complexity from the colors

Of her eyes.

The sunset borrowed its inspiration from the waves

Of her hair.

The ocean found its deepness in the depth

Of her voice.

I found my mother in the smiling curve

Of her lips.

A taste of mint leaves already fading,

A yawn worthy of a lion,

A gentle comforting cocoon.

Closed eyes,

Curled toes,

Content smile.

Arch your back,

Clear your mind,

Then fade.

Oblivion is marketed as sweet.

To the women:

"Try these ten tasty meals!"

You'll be thin after you choke down

Your first bite.

To the ill:

"A spoonful of sugar..."

Helps the medicine null your mind

Once you commit to your prescription.

To the desperate:

"They make it fruit flavored now"

And you can see the candy promises

Laid out in a pale powder line.

Oblivion is only sweet if

The memories you escape to

Are bathed in sugar

But then...

Relived memories taste like

Throwing up desires.

Sweet doesn't matter,

The aftertaste is all the same.

Bright

They fall in

wide flakes of antimony

melting on your outstretched tongue.

They gift a pleasant sort of numbness to 

your tense anatomy: the kind you 

know you earned.

Later, it will

feel like 

a thousand tiny 

bright needles as life is

granted reentry by the undone clasps

hugging skintight boots.

But now, 

breathe in the

generous cold; accept her

reward. Shake the snow off your

fiberglass limbs. Give thanks

to the colors that cut

sharp, intoxicating

lines into the 

skin of 

The Mountain.

Sounds rolled off her tongue

Like a waterfall in her young mouth,

Every night spent awake

Every smile she gave that dark ceiling over her consciousness

Every lip numbing hummmm

She sang to that kind sky

Clinging to her pink blanket.

She sits, grasping her cloth shield

Locked away in the yellowing

pages of my mind

New paragraphs changing her story into mine.

Dark white leers on my memories

A sky

A ceiling

That makes my skin crawl

Pinned down by my own

Three letter prison sentence

"Yes"

That did not roll off my lips

But tore and shredded it's way,

Forced out of me.

The young girl from those

Old pages in my head

Sits confused

Unsure

She no longer has a place in

My changed mind, so different from

The fertile earth she used to walk.

Changed not out of choice.

Old friends that gather dust,

No less your memories than before.

They hunch,

Leaning on each other.

Spines cracked

Down yellowing skin that is folded and worn

Comforts your fingertips.

Breathe in screeching metal,

Evergreen forests swirling with mist

That clutches

Lingers on blacked eyelids

While hot coffee scorches your thoughts

And your chest tightens from too much oxygen.

Keep breathing in.

A smile evolves like a plot on your face

Faltering when your favorite character dies.

Arteries pound with imagines adrenaline

Your mind snaps

Ready to fire.

Still. Breathe in.

Breathe until your lungs hurt

And crave more oxygen.

Inhale that addiction,

One that demands your fingers move.

Without becoming consciously aware,

Eyes open,

Skimming the page

Picking up your friendship where it left off.