When She Takes Flight

from the weight of a million worlds,

all curdling and swaying in her mind,

she wanders a cityscape and dreams

every dream is another place, a scene,

where she can take her wary thoughts,

each one twining into a braid of story

stories follow her wherever she goes,

like shadows tracing every step taken,

and it’s a wonder she ever sleeps

sleep has become its own monster,

truthfully more enemy than friend,

bending and blending night terrors

terror is, of course, its own serpent

ready to squeeze the life out of her,

but she pretends she’s in a fairy tale

tales alone cannot save the blind,

feed the hungry, or nurse the sick,

but they are balms to her every day

days do bleed into weeks and months,

and she loses herself in words upon words,

the only true escape she really knows—

knowing, someday, she will take flight