When She Takes Flight

Poetry

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

Originally published at https://vocal.media.