Outdoors, a false sense of security returns. It

shoulders the weight of night, completing

the trapped emotions in my head.

Spreading across any surface

a loss of self and purpose spinning in a mesh. In this

moment between white and colorless safety.

Within this holding back, I hear

rain falling where there is none, catching the

sigh, the slow memory of light reflected on the moon.

And I, like a shaken, bewildered child, begin

to grasp at anything, reaching into nothing everything. If

only to move outward, beyond

the thoughts of people, the longings for comfort,

beyond, at last, my own fears of not meeting

the expectations of me.

Into a deeper night, far from any moonshine,

I am free in my hiding hole. Motionless,

only one thing is absent.

Life.