My eyes burn.
Within my vision I see the leylines of the unspoken connections between each thing. Walking through the bazaar underneath the clear, sun set skye, looking at those I pass, I can see them too. Each of their steps revealing an infinite strand of new leylines spreading outwards to the next moment they cannot see, as all but one disappear as that moment arrives, spreading out another series of inconceivable inevitabilities. My eyes burn more as now they are not solely occupied by fire, but also tears.
My mind bends under the strain. Each step, each pair of eyes, what I can handles becomes less and less. My gaze darting between these wells of potential, avoiding the glut of knowledge, I find nothing to break me away from the overexposure. Everything is happening slowly as I begin to crumple to the ground. Trying instead to focus, I settle on one focal point; the small child sitting amidst the bazaar, smiling at something I can no longer in my vision.
This child, having lived for not even a decade, only seemed as an empty vessel, to be filled by the rest of his life. As I see his emptiness, I see his eyes turn white, and his expression fills from innocent joy into savage cruelty, watching as he stands tall, suddenly grown, to attack a foe I cannot see. The swelling in my throat. As he goes to hold his sworn enemy, I see him shed a tear as he looks down at his own child, cherishing that his good fortune had brought him such luck to bring forth life.
His tears drying, I watch as his joy morphs becomes tarnish, seeing that his trade has now become exploited, reaping no fruit from his labors, as he considers the unjustness of those who stand above him, taking what is not theirs, calcifying his bitterness. I stare him in the eye as I see a melancholy set into his pupils, looking now at what his life had amounted to, and what he had gotten from this earth.
The child laughs innocently at my gritted teeth and tears, as I seem him now again as he is, breaking his matched stare. Gathering myself to my feet, I watch the pavement as I weakly try to make my way towards somewhere removed from these people and their possibilities. The suns dancing around my head, orbiting playfully, as they whisper to remind me that I see as they do. Playful for them. Decimating me.
I make my way outwards away from the bazaar without encountering another of these premonitions. Opposing the village I had emerged from was a mesa. Admiring it’s impossible height, I looked closely, beginning noticing a leyline pointing faintly towards this overlook. The suns buzzed with anticipation. Beginning this journey I was apparently destined to endeavor, I realized I quickly couldn’t understand the length between myself and the meca.
The rove from where I began was uninterrupted by others. I thought the child much, but was otherwise undisturbed. The leyline faded many times. as the sun set and rose over this journey, and as the approach to the mesa became closer, I found I couldn’t know how long I had spent in the wilds to come to this place. The mesa before me, I saw the beginning of steps that wound around the wall of the mesa.
Gazing up above, I saw that there were still steps winding to the top many more times above me. Taking the first step, I found myself finishing the last step just as quickly. Thousands of steps that I could not remember, but the leyline I had followed now glowed brightly, like a strand of silk.
I wandered for some time atop of the mesa, straying from the leyline, to indulge myself a sense of accomplishment for having come so far. Returning to where I was being lead however, I found myself a basin to sit in, gazing at the village I had arrived from, seeing now that it was a city, with towering altars to the skye. My eyes burned. I squinted, gazing at this burgeoning city, only to see so many uncountable amounts of strands and leylines overflowing form the city like a river. none of them lead out to this mesa where I sat, thought many pointed in the direction, diverting or ending before arriving at the base.
From here I sat, burning, happy that I could now see so clearly.

I’m a tourist
I wasn’t born here
My life isn’t tied to his land
I don’t love it enough to make it my own
My friends grew up here
But most of my relationships have died here as well
I don’t know many anymore
The few I do are painful finger pricks reminding me to leave
Those that I love live in a different world that I’ve yet to discover
You’re complacent
You’ve become someone who looks for their friends in every pair of eyes
This place you live has become your grave
Upon which the next generation will dance
But you’ve become dependent on the same strip of pavement you’ve known your whole life
And the trees whose bark you recognize as a comfort of home
The deathly monotony that you’ve become used to
It goads you into throwing your life away
Staying
And if you stay you die; the binary is before you
Who are you? And who am I?

In the summer of my season I saw a somber sight on Mori Point that made the fall seem closer
The surf slowly came to the sand, so slowly that the sea seemed to me to be an endless mirror stretching beyond the horizon
I saw her dance flutter so softly on the sea’s endless mirror, that every breathe spanned a full day and every blink a full night
By her side floated and fluttered small lizards with wings, imitating her song and sonder
A crown of flowers grew into her hair and the difference between sea and land became ever less distinguishable underneath her feet
The crashing of the waves drown out the noise of my problems, that each of them faded away into the moment as I watched her canter soothe my soul
The warmth escaped me as I watched the pinks reflected on the sea’s mirror fade into darker oranges
She saw me, and she smiled
As she smiled the small suns around her head burnt brighter, reminding me of things I had chosen to forget

The clouds were still dark. They had been dark for the better part of my memory as it mayhaps. I could not see past them, and the sun seldom came out to visit me. Often it was hard to find the right path to take when the skye was so dark. With so little light from the sun. How were we to find our way when we couldn’t see our own feet or the street beneath them. Walking down the streets was its own dedication of effort. Assuming you truly knew where you were going was usually just a bluff, for appearances.
As I walked down the streets, hoping I’d find my way, I saw ahead of me a man on a bench. Furled hair and a beard full of salt and grime that could’ve come from any number of vile places. He was unkept, and his stench could be picked up from wherever you could see him. Whiskey, seawater, salt, and tears. It was a common scent to pick up if one was to walk through the streets long enough. I kept my pace towards him, undeterred by whatever I imagined had been the source of such a smell might be.
He grogged his head towards me as I approached and stood abruptly, held his glass above his head and grabbed my collar, looked to the skye, and roared, “Through this holy unction may the Lord pardon thee whatever sins or faults thou hast committed”, and dripped some unholy spirit upon my head.
Before I could push him to the ground, he himself fell back to where he had sat, as if nothing of the sort had happened. Muttered some words about a broken swan. I had the sense to kick him where he lay, but I could smell the seawater, and it disheartened me from any kind of stong emotion. I looked to the same dark skye he had hearkened upon, and continued to try my way back to where I told myself I’d belonged.
After what seemed to be a veritable fortnight of walking beneath the overcast, I found the door that was mine. I climbed the stairs, as they creaked beneath my weight, reminding me that they too were once a great oak. As I came to my cot, I looked out the blemished pane of glass and let the skye take hold of me, sat down, knocked back small decanter. It smelled of plums and lavender, and some berry. Thrice more I knocked it back, and it was empty, which meant I soon would be too. I rested my spirit soaked head on my cot and allowed the skye to smother me into the cot.
I opened my eyes to the same skye I had just closed them to. I was laying in mud. I smelled the seawater, but I also smelled gunpowder, and blood. I heard the claps of rifles and the explosions of flak and mortars in every direction. As I sat up, someones son collapsed beside me, dead before he’d hit the ground. I got up and looked down the line to see a full army of men plastered against the mud. Men rushed past me with their heads low to the ground.
I stood up and walked down the line, unnoticed by those I passed. The explosions rang louder as one lone man without a helmet blew a whistle, with twenty others jumped to their feet and hopped to the top of the trench. They were each immediately killed by a whirring machine a distance away I could not see. The man with the whistle sat down, back against the trench and starred out at something I couldn’t see. I came and sat next to him. He didn't look at me, but put his hand on my knee. I turned my head to look towards what his company had been rushing towards.
In the mud a league away I saw a crown, sheened and glinting amidst the lifeless ground behind rows upon rows of barbed wire. I sat back by my friend. I looked to where he looked, against the opposing face of the trench. There was nothing there, but his whistle was still between his teeth, and he gripped his colt tightly. I removed his hand from my knee and up from him. I briefly thought about what I was considering and turned towards the fates as they fired at others. I felt his hand on my knee again. I looked back and smelled the seawater as he tried to pull me back towards the safety of the trench. His beard was filled with salt and grime, and his eyes with fear.
I stepped above the trench towards the barbed forest ahead of me, and accepted that I too would probably be whirred down. But I kept walking, waiting for the whir to end me, I looked back to where my friend had been, and I saw his eyes following me. Waiting for me too to fall, he took out a flask and shook it towards me . I turned and waited too.
I came to the barbed forest and saw no other way past the shrubbery, so I put my hand on a single barb, and pushed the wire aside. I’m sure it cut me, but I didn’t notice as I continued to push aside the wire that came between me and whatever the whirring fates had called me to. As I pushed aside the last of the wire, I noticed that my foot sank deeper than it had before. Making my way forward, each step sank closer. Each step that sank deeper, the louder the ambient gunfire grew.
I was so close, and as I reached to retrieve the distant crown, I found that my wrist only barely reached above the surface of the mud, and I was in fact sinking. Sink I did, as the mud and the gunfire slowly drown me from the hellscape that I had navigated. I blindly clasped for the crown once more, and instead was met by another hand. I felt myself leave the mud and come back to breathing in air, finding myself face to face with her who I had seen before.
I knew her well, and as she pulled me to the ground that would not sink beneath my weight, she handed me the crown I had seeked. It had small, empty sockets that lined the rim. The fire danced in that amused way. I placed it about my head, and I felt tired in a way that I dare not describe. She handed me a green gem, and as I looked in it, I saw the sun. I saw my son, and the success in his eyes. I saw the two lovers who knew that no pain would part them. I put the gem in the socket I found first. I felt it’s joy weigh down on my shoulders.
She then handed me a blood red gem. In its glint I saw my father in his bed, gasping for air. I saw the aspirations of each of the twenty men who had stepped above the trench. I saw the loneliness of someone god had abandoned in this miserable land. I socketed this gem as well, and I felt pain in my arms. Next she handed me a yellow stone. It was lighter than the others. When I gazed into it I saw people sharing food on a table. There were two people singing a song over a grave in the rain. Strangers planting together in a garden. I placed this yellow gem too. As I placed it and thought of that love that I saw, my chest tightened.
She then handed me a blue gem. It was dark like the deep ocean. I was wary to look into it, but I did anyway. I saw the look in the eyes of my enemies as I held their neck against my knife. And I saw the look in my eyes as I had began to realized I was sinking into the mud. I saw a child realize they might not have food to eat that night. I hesitantly put it in the crown. The fear took hold of me too, and my back hurt in a new way.
She handed me one last stone. It gleamed white with each color ornamenting the grooves and valleys on its surface. As I gazed into it, I could see nothing, only that it had a glow that I’d dare not look away from. I put it in into the remaining socket. My knees locked and I saw white. My face slapped the mud. The crown was too heavy for my shoulders. It began to drag me down once again. I struggled to bring my hand to take the crown off of my head, but she leaned down towards my half sunken face and said to me, “Beloved, this weight you can not shake. It is yours to bear, and yours to enjoy. It may be heavy now, but it will be light once the skye clears. S I N E - Q U A - N O N.”
The thunder of rifles and grenades was the only sound I could hear as I lost sight of the dancing suns around her eyes. I wasn't ready. I screamed, at the top of my lungs as the mud dragged me further, the thunder growing faint now as well. I screamed harder. I still only saw white. I was sure that there was nothing. And as I tried to open my eyes, hoping even just to see the barbed forest that I had waded through, I opened my eyes to a different hellscape.
My room was the same as when I had left it, or when I had knocked that tonic that smelled so softly of a sleepier horizon. I walked myself out the door and looked to the skye. It was still dark in the same way that I had always known. I thought of my shell shocked friend in the trench, and where I should find him in this different reality. I trudged through the streets and the alleyways, hoping I’d find him. I did. It was still his smell of seawater, and his slurs of swans and waves. However he now had a crown of barbed wire that ornamented his furled hair. I couldn't be sure that it was him. I couldn’t believe it.
He nodded up to meet my gaze, put his thumb to my forehead and from his eyes the same brightness that the final gem had flooded my sight with. He uttered the same latin she had, in the same voice that he had called to god with so much earlier, and let go. I dropped to the ground again. This time the paved stone did not greet me as gently as the mud had.
When I had finally regained my resolve, I stood back up to see him, only to find him gone. It was in keeping with the didactic idiom these events had taken place in. Pain in my palms. I looked to them, seeing barbed shaped cuts that now actually hurt in a very real, and annoying way. My boots were also covered in mud. Until that moment however, the skye had been dark, and consuming. I saw the sun.

As I walked towards the stone monuments that cast shadows upon the dark green grass。These monuments and columns reached high into the night and worshiped the skye。As I looked to them, their shadows loomed with an unending longness。I would have avoided them and their uneasy insinuations if I could have, but as I gazed at them, I too felt like I cast a deep shadow。
Drawn away, I moved on towards a large roll in the hill in the distance, to the side of those gargantuan relics。
I walked towards this auspicious glow upon the mound, and I found that it glowed with the sparkle of fireflies。Coming to the top of the small hill, I looked to see if the fireflies would notice however they didn't, and continued to dance about and frolic against the night’s sky。I noticed that one by one as the fireflies danced they began to drop to the ground。There was never an end to them though, and as each one dropped, another ignited against the sky。I looked to the ground where they fell and saw a grave of fireflies。
As each one fell, each glow darkened slowly, until each was lying softly upon the ground。The night was so windy and deeply blue, that I wondered how I myself wasn't already lost in this strangely comforting abyss。As I sat nearby on a rock, instead of opposing this strange dance of demise and reignition, I simply watched, letting their process of beauty and finality play its course。There was a grandeur to behold as each one individually was so bright against the night。The greater whole held a magnitude comparable to holding a star in your hand。
A firefly faded and floated to the ground, and as it did the wind blew it onto my knee。
As it touched my skin, I felt the energy of that sun course through me。Every pain and every joy I had known was there in the touch of a dying firefly。I saw eyes of fire, sunsets that glew with pinks and oranges, and the very moment I laid my sights on the grave of fireflies。A memory and a moment from the past, only minutes earlier。The wind blew the dead light away from my knee and the sins of the past faded away。I breathed in deeply, noticing the entire park was filled with these floating lights and the lives they lived。Not one fell as I moved silently through the ocean of lights。
The small illuminations parted around me, being careful as to not touch me again as I sifted my way to the top of a platform nearer the side of the sea。I wouldn’t have been unwelcome to their touch once again, the pain was only momentary, contrasted by the interwoven moments of solemn joy, however, that small strike of lightning was only a memory now。Atop the platform I had seen, was a small meadow of lavender and the scent of sage。I sat on the edge of the platform, the lavender meeting me eye level, gazing upon the sea and the ocean of twinkling lights by her side。The sea, o the sea’s might and violence by the side of this peaceful, serene ocean of lights, how it swore and swelled, seemingly so close to a cataclysm upon my intrepid discovery。
The night’s sky was still dark, like the backdrop on a canvas, yet it had a brightness of its own that was strangely noticeable。I looked to the sky to see if the stars had any sage words of wisdom, but was met with a very present nothingness。From the platform, I looked to the monuments and columns, and saw that their imposing shadows were gone, replaced by the intense glow of the ocean。I felt lighter myself against the engulfing lights。
The lavender and sage next to me filled my mind with warmth and comfort, the subtle scent they alluded to like a strong incense that had no need to burn。The sea sprayed me with the mist of her waves, reminding me that utter oblivion was only a glance away。I felt urged to visit her。
So I fell from the edge of the platform to the midst of the fog of little lights, and made my way towards the meeting of the sea and the land。The fireflies again made sure to avoid me, however I noticed that some of them floated beside me on my way to meet the sea。As I stepped off of the land the lights lived in, a number followed me, slowly leaving me to rejoin the ocean they had departed from。
One by one they floated away, until one alone floated and buzzed around my head, staying with me as the sea and I gazed at each other。The waves of the sea roared and thundered, rearing up to display the death they might impart to those who opposed them。As the waves came towards me, this lone firefly did not leave, and adamantly illuminated my eyes, despite my ready embrace of the tide。
Slowly, yet rapidly, the waves came to my feet, and slowly the ocean rose up my figure, past my waist and my arms, up to my neck。I looked to my little light, with tears, as the ocean smited it from my vision。Once it was dark panic began to set in, and the immediacy of the sea’s danger became real。The sea imposed upon me it’s utter oblivion, and I was it’s subject。The sea threw me and tossed me, giving me to her waves to do what they would, me giving myself to them as well, to do what I felt they should。I was thrown further and further into the darkness, and as I was thrown further, amidst the salt that tore away at my skin, I lifted but a finger to make my way back to the lone firefly, somewhere in the wash。
As my hand reached out towards the long lost scent of sage and lavender, I found the sea had no longer welcomed me as it spit me out towards the meeting of the land and the sea。There amidst the grains of sand I also found the lifeless light of that lone firefly that had walked me to what had most certainly been my demise。I took this microscopic creature in my hand and walked towards the ocean of it’s kin。Once these breathing, warming lights clung to a perfect distance between themselves and I, but now as I carried this departed light to the grave of fireflies, they parted around me like a crowd parts for a criminal。
I sat on the rock where I had first found these beautiful illuminations, drenched to my deepest fears by the seawater, and laid the light next to the other lights that had gone out。Taking myself back towards the platform with the lavender and sage, I came to sit in the small meadow。The fragrance of the bushes warmed me, despite how i felt that comfort was something foreign and undeserved; it felt like a pitiful embrace reserved for someone who was broken。Thinking about everything that had happened in this short span of nighttime, I wondered if I deserved this feeling of warmth。
Had I deserved what the sea might’ve subjected me to? All that had transpired had happened in the absence of my interjecting doubt, and I understood that this too had happened without my consideration。So shall all other events occur, inspite, or despite my consideration; it was simpler to surrender myself to the scents and sensations of lavender and sage。As my consideration of my consideration was occluded, I opened my eyes and saw down to the fireflies and I wondered what would happen if I returned to walk amidst them again。
I cut my wondering short。