it was a summer of truth, a season of clarity - the knowing felt like an endless fall. travelling along the river of second chances, can i forget the past? can i let go of that enfoldment of memories that haunt me - moments of bad judgment, control relinquished to others, the accidental debilitation of the survival instinct, failed new beginnings - hollow nights echoing screams - guilt sinking its fangs into the rain’s siren song?  time divided what I lived into pieces, memory has patched them together in no particular order;  long ago i gave birth to  swarms of black bees - i was so proud of my creation, so blind - dissonance drifted into the constellation of petty triumphs - i trusted the power of blood and words and silver mornings - such broken and forsaken materials, shimmering shards for the eager heart. as seen from today past victories were the unavoidable precondition of the fall from grace, torn pages from the chronicle of defeat. there’s nowhere for me to go now;  this is the end of a broken story about being perfect and having it all. it’s precisely here, at the end of the world, that the hero’s journey comes to an end; not with a tragic twist in the script but with a few blank pages: smooth, mirror-like, hungry.