By Julia Stewart, TIWP student

At first you listened

You strained your ears to grasp it

After a time you realized;

There is nothing.

Not the sound of frogs shouting their desires

Not the wind bellowing its pain.

Finally you have been left there,

In that fraction of a second.

You soaked it up like a dessert’s rain

And you prayed to the silence.

But then you fathomed its meaning

Time chipped at you like an ax.

Piece by piece the fragments

Of your heart fell to ice cold the floor.

And yet they melted.

Your heart had become so frozen

So dark

Not even a frosted floor could hold its splinters

Your heart had not been constructed for this life.

It had longed for joy before death

And for an instant you encountered delight.

You watched from a far.

And for a while it was enough;

Watching ponds open like red blossoms

And the stars shine in nature’s eyes

But then the desire was no longer satisfied.

It grew into an ache and didn’t stop there

Your hunger grew beyond your own flesh and blood

And then you fell

You fell into the night where time was shattered

No longer did you belonged to the moon,

But to the surging flames.

That’s where the burning began.

That longing for joy before death had gone up in flames

And the only letters left spelled death.