Windswept pt. 3

Malice in the sun's gleam,
blinding off of ponds and rocky surfaces alike,
from an ironically guiding institution,
eternal.
The night stars inspire more trust;
heavenly circuitry.

Nerves of fire, they persist,
winking from the nether.

Instinct in the sky.
Learn to trust these, maybe.

Bare, tender feet ache to meet the atmosphere.

Reddish, cracked cushion
with darker, firm exterior;
trudging over scaly mud.

The wind blows
and the nausea of letting go pangs,
but there is height on the horizon.

Every step elevating,
memory's breath excavating
ropes that burn while toward them, reining,
still on, forward, my soles take me.

Big pictures melt into finer details the closer you get,
not entirely dislike grey slush hardening into concrete;
closing the distance on a mountain.

Jutting skyward
at the cusp of rock and ground,
the wisely weathered mountain's face.

Exhausted to the point of numb preparation,
I begin ascent.

The higher I trek, the more ferocious the wind coldly screams,
wailing directionless,
into ringing ears that no longer hear
and over worn skin that barely feels.

On the snow-capped summit, nothing but a view.
My mind returns to seeing the shore from the ocean,
now thankful for a different perspective.

Windswept pt. 2

Thorny vines strangled their way out of cavities in the ground,
to lethargic vision, almost throbbing;
a verdant abscess.

Exposed roots weaved in and out of pit walls
like dolphins restricted to the waterway of a canal,
trapped.

I solemnly grit my teeth,
sorrow and anger bearing a bastard child without name.

This was land?

Flared nostrils bit the sickly scent of soggy leaves.
Had the winds wept sometime during my lost sojourn?

Flogging forward,
the landscape persists.
Keeping the wind at my back,
my only direction,
even on ground.

Endless creviced overgrowth...
we've been here before.
The wind's running me in circles.

Routing myself against it, exactly,
would yield only the same result.

Through warm, aching eyelids
the inevitable realization leaked
out as streamed consciousness:
I must bear my own way.

Windswept pt. 1

Infectious gusts delivered direction,
sailing.

From warm, southern coasts
of comfort and safety
to treacherous ice-piked banks
birthing uncertainty.
It seemed we could go anywhere.
We would go everywhere.

Soft airs exhaled by nature herself
on blemished cheeks
that extend with every savored breath,
every taste of tree bark hope
that we'd arrive shortly to land,
rosy quartz in my eyes.

Alternatively, choking
on freezing, bellowing realization
that the wind blows aimless.

Every place, I believed desired.
Every place, a destination,
though I never set foot on any shores,
only viewing them from my transport.

Thus, never grounded,
fearing decommission of my windmill self
that absolutely needs,
with all-consuming wrath,
even a slight breeze to automate.

Those were my feelings,
melded into belief.

Why, then, does the wind blow?
If it has intent, when?
And for whom?
How can I please it,
and by what means?

I already know where it's taken me,
but I now step off.