it was warm once. seabed. till the continents kissed; pressed their teeth against one another & pulled the marine floor up by a string to the sky. under the frozen salt, you can still see the coiled spines of once-shelled things. at the summit, your feet rest on the limestone ribs of some big creature that once was sea. now– a temptation disguised in windhorse flags & will, littered with bottles & bottles of breath & bodies swollen in sun-bleached parkas, conjuring up faint memories of orange sun-heat, savoring the fetish of the unattainable, dangling lightly from strings and ladders and glaciers. all to be able to say; you could go to the top of the world & forever find a piece of me there. my blue, unspoiled life. an asphyxiated finger i once touched you so soft with. now– fluorescent & scintillating your face pressed to a pillow of snow having dreams of hot tea at the top of the world, while the hurt gathers up its heavy things. later two headlamps will move in the dark & find you for the first time. their light’ll flicker & catch you in a small burst of heat like a dog curled up in a patch of sun. & it’ll end like it started: a skeleton coiled in marine limestone.
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