tectonic, and nothing else

this suffocation has

followed me from the

shoreline. these instincts

are primal, are endless

urges to claw new faces

into the mountainsides

just to feel the earth

underneath my fingernails.

the peaks rise up like

wisdom i'll never grasp,

ancient in all their

indifference. the mist

doesn't choke them like

it does me, and it proves

that no matter where i

flee, all that i left behind

has already infected this

side of my skin. a bounty

on my head; a death

wish if i slow down. this

late-june loneliness, this

summer-solstice emptiness

hollows out my ribcage

and nests where i am

too afraid to reach

inside and dig. unfiltered

sunbeams make me passive—

and that's just another

failed metaphor for the ache

to redeem myself to

him. i see mother earth

painted soft in the distance;

i see the color leave

my skin in the mirror

and eventually, the miles

tinge me blue like the rest

of appalachia. there's no

crown for the first to the top.

there's no gilded throne

for the conquerer. the

peaks hold their territory

tight with their millennia

and i am too young,

too young, too ephemeral.

too buried in the back of a

long-collapsed mine shaft.

(the emeralds wink at

me from my grave—they

tell me my bones will

fuse with these outstretched

hands of rock and

that if i will be remembered

for anything, it will be for

how they will unearth me

in a hundred, a thousand

years and find my skeleton

still crying out apologies

to my mother.)