At Peace and In Pieces

I pull lungfuls of air into the warmest embrace

To feed a joyous noise

Then step out into glowing greenery

Scattered with golden leaves

And snuffling rabbits

The water glitters

The willows trail

The ducks and geese and squirrels

Fear not the youth that ogle them

I let lungfuls of air run clean cold fingers

Past my weary larynx

And I feel completely content

~

Then, in the space where I sleep

And continually pile belongings

All cozy attic angles

And chipped Magnolia with sooty sable corners

The walls seem to loom ever closer

And with the window shut against the cold

I breathe shallow

I think shallow too

Creating awful conversations that will never be

Remembering the reek of raw sewage

The foxes that fear less than nothing

And every silhouette that, from afar,

Is just the same flavour of familiar

I taste my own stale breath

Growing colonies of misery behind my molars

And I feel completely adrift