I Look Down to Find Myself in Ruins

I.

I used to know you like I know the feeling of Nevada’s cold, crisp air on my face.

I knew the feel of your hand brushing my cheek before it landed.

I knew the color of your eyes and the sound of your voice.

You were all wrapped up in the curve of the hills and the jagged edges of the mountains. The blue and white snow-capped peaks reflected your smiling gaze.

The quiet of the desert reverberated with your gentle whispers, and I always knew where to find you among the aspens and the sagebrush.

You were never far away from me,

And we were very much in love.

These days I feel war torn, reeling from some great shock that dropped in between us when I least expected it. I might have been retreating all this time, running backwards away from the smoke cloud, but I have not known it until now.

II.

I wake up, and I am in a strange place that I don’t know.

Far off, I can hear the sounds of some painful memory, but now I am alone, and not a soul is in sight.

All around me is dust and ash

And my hands are outstretched, as if to say “No.”

I remember the quiet moments that I spent with you, the tender words that you spoke to me in what seems like another life. But I don’t know where to find you now. I don’t know where I am.

III.

I’m trying to reconcile this mushroom cloud and these shrapnel wounds with a life that I once knew was real… but it doesn’t seem real to me anymore.

The color blue, is that a story I heard once? Or perhaps it existed, long ago.

Every now and then I think I hear your voice, calling to me through this smoke.

But I grow ashamed,

And I am scared to walk into the darkness to find you.

The wind brings the smell of fresh-cut grass, or sagebrush after a storm, but only for a moment and it makes me want to cry.

I know home is close, but I don’t know how to get there.

I’m scared to follow your voice, that it will take me too far from this awful place. I’m scared to remember how I got here.

IV.

Lately I’ve been walking to and fro, just where the shadows meet each other and shield me from a place that lies beyond them.

I can see them, living over there. I hear them laughing and imagine them with you.

I comfort myself by looking down my nose at them from over here.

Silly, enchanted fools. They know nothing of this terrible place.

Yet I begin to wonder.

I do not know if it is this life or the other that is really real.

I don’t know how to tell if I am flesh or shadow.

V.

Do you remember when you told me that anything is possible? I don’t believe it anymore. I want to.

Please come find me.