I’m walking lightly across crisp stale leaves
that crinkle from my toes.
Goldfoil sparks across the screaming sky
Roaring and laughing in glee.
Last signs of shivelight burn through the trees
Gone now with the impending storm.
The white lace of my dress drags behind in
Muddy puddles frosting over.
My bare feet coated in ashy dust
Leave blacked prints to follow by.
Time is catching up. It was never on my side.
It left my skin creased and dry
Desperate and craving and barren.
I bend to stroke the soft petal
Of a lightly shaded pansy. Petals broken and
Torn apart. Time took it too.
Echoes chase me down, impatient calls
And worried shouts. They wonder where I’ve gone.
My skin was poked and prodded
cut and sewed too many times to count.
I’m done with all the pain and tears
I’m here now where I belong.
Coated in cool misty rain among
The nature I dreamed of.
I can’t go back.
Stuffy fake air suffocated my lungs
Now burning clear and free
with the sharp tang of incoming rain.
They say I need the machines to live
But without them I have never been more alive.
Megan Jamnicky is a first-year communications major at Penn State Harrisburg.
