absolute

Annika Gangopadhyay

when you feel stone shackles erupt from your veins like pits of volcano ash, 

pressed against the cold barrier behind you, 

and when your eyes grope for that field of moonshine scraped from the pockets of dream-like soil

that hardens as a frosted draft rolls in,

you know it’s here, the moment

when slumberous yesterdays fall off the rim of existence

and the present is a lattice in fractures.