Rattle

This morning I woke with no joy, with no expectation of feeling joy again. 3am, no sleep, only thoughts of a slug that wishes for a child to snip some salt onto its wound of a body and laugh while it shrivels. The hole is there, pulling and begging entrance.. the complete absence of beauty, absence of anything within that could find itself outside of me. The pain in my chest begs for a knife placed sideways through the ribs, as if nothing could stir life into me except the blade of cold metal.. realization physical.

Nights spent lying in rotting hay and manure, waiting for the cold to take its grip, waiting for morning to come and bring something new to hold onto to.. take me away, farther.

That is what the forest is good for. A few steps in and the trees take over, carrying bodies of the unknown. The beauty is there, incomplete silence, or it once was. Who knows anymore where to go.