We crawl and eat their grasses. We barf up our stomach aches when our grumblings reach upward and out. It reabsorbs into the ground. It plants. Our hurt seeds. We wait. We gain strength off the flowers that can grow wild into our mouths. They die in our bodies, and we pray, if we pray, for them to give us reason to rest this shakeless sleep.
We are dirt worshippers. When we talk within ourselves, we feel the sun shine brighter under our eyelids. We pluck the petals off the flowers and feel how they dissolve in the purse of our gums. When we clasp our hands together, we feel ripped up grass within the intertwining.
Our knees beg for meadow when the field mingles with concrete. We eat gravel that shakes loose from the cracks. The gravel scratches once it gets inside the body. It pulses against each beat of the heart. It drowns the lungs when we fill up too fast. It heavies our bodies so that our eyes can only look down. We grab for the ankles ahead of us when we crawl.
The birds try to pick us up, but we are too heavy. Our spines get closer to exposed every time they dive at us and claw with talons. We hide our ears behind our palms to quiet their caws from the clouds above. They peck their beaks to the ground, digging for a better sky underneath. We break their wings when they are distracted. We tear their feathers and put them in our pockets as a remembrance.
We remember being capable. We crawl stronger. We reach the monuments our darkness wants to worship. We carve tiny hammers and break them down. We strike at them until they are gravel. We stand up and feel our feet how it feels to walk.
In dangerfields there are holyfields. In holyfields there are dangerfields. We eat the flowers when the fields grow them. We crawl through rubble when it’s what’s under our rashed knees. We allow ourselves to trek them all because the fields stretch on until the danger of the holy cliffs.
We hope on the way down the wind won’t get so loud that it fades the memories of when the fields were full of crickets, singing all night for as long as a life.
Niles Baldwin lives in Kittery, Maine. His work can be found in Heavy Feather Review, Hunger Mountain, JMWW, Bullshit Lit, HAD, BULL, Sleepingfish XX and elsewhere. Thanks for reading.
High Horse 