For Kat

She moves with gentle breath

into smooth waves of sound,

languid and dreaming of

sleep.

The mirrors mimic her face as

she collapses within.

Words form, then vanish into liquid and vinyl.

She watches the moment before she slips away.

Blanketed by space, alone.

Her spirit struggling to push against the crushed blue velvet fabric of time.

She bursts suddenly into helium and carbon pieces. scattering instantaneously across the universe. She watches without firmament the eruptions and fractures of a brilliant moon, intoxicated instantly by weightlessness and snow.

One heartbeat and the heat returns to her body.

As she travels back through tunnels that hold the shadows and memories of her life, a gasp.

Like the first breath of a child. Every moment of light creates a distance and forgetting

until nothing is left.

Nothing but white walls in a large empty house and sleep.

Sweet sleep.