It's Better To Burn Out Than Fade Away

for the 40th to 200th million summer in a row

unreal spot at 5 am today

inez gudem

#1 thing for someone being haunted to say

When you tilted toward me, arms out like someone trying to walk through a fire, when you swayed toward me, crying out you were sorry for what you had done to me, your eyes filling with terrible liquid like balls of mercury from a broken thermometer skidding on the floor, when you quietly screamed Where else could I turn? Who else did I have? the chopped crockery of your hands swinging toward me, the water cracking from your eyes like moisture from stones under heavy pressure, I could not see what I would do with the rest of my life. The sky seemed to be splintering, like a window someone is bursting into or out of, your tiny face glittered as if with shattered crystal, with true regret, the regret of the body. I could not see what my days would be, with you sorry, with you wishing you had not done it, the sky falling around me, its shards glistening in my eyes, your old, soft body fallen against me in horror I took you in my arms, I said It’s all right, don’t cry, it’s all right, the air filled with flying glass, I hardly knew what I said or who I would be now that I had forgiven you.

Rika

Great Smoky Mountains, North Carolina by Jason Frye