Soot

Anxiety is soot upon my hands

I see it build and I cling to myself, spreading it like paint across my being

It spreads to my life, my home, my loved ones, blotting out the color and light

the Doctor tried to quench the fire to protect me, the embers burned low

Suffocating and sparking, I see It killing me inside and out.

Soon, I wonder,

What is this soot? Why does it come on so thickly?

The soot is my dreams that once burned brightly.

Once fuel, now unused, deformed and black.

Can I see the fire inside?

I cannot simply smolder,

I must burn brightly as the fire in my head.

The fire will cleanse me, and the soot is not there.

The wind takes the ash away, and I am pure again.

-AE

The Dream of Rust

The boat was massive. At shore it contained the hall dimension of the island. However, when the boat launched it was gone. The cargo holds of the vessel were hollow but for a sluice of toxic orange colored fluid. I was to follow a man as he entered codes that I would read off a small piece of paper. It went fine at first, but as I walked I felt lighter and lighter. Soon I discovered I had no shoes, and the legs of my pants were dissolving.

I guess that about when I lost focus, The numbers began to blur, decimals swapped in just as he was turning a valve.

The rust mixture spread and poured into the belly of the ship.

“Somethings wrong” he said. We ran along the corridors to the deck.

We were coming into port, but the gates were closed to the bay.

There were human bodies everywhere, from the docks to the shore. They were still warm beneath my feet

And old woman sat with a great orange cat, looking over a massive valley. The former cove was emptied down to the sea bed. There were bodies stretched as far as I could see, up the rock face and along the brim.

She looked up and said to nobody in particular that they would be flooding it soon.

Then I woke up.

~AE