Quietus

with closed eyes I saw borderless rungs afloat, they were stacked

like dominoes; unsure where I was, I looked around to see a

deep prussian blue expanse, mass held by some kind of buoyancy,

a missing horizon and a constant astral tinnitus; I was jaded —

leaping from one rung to another, wearing my skin, carrying my

bones, dragging a heavy heart like that of a cephalopod.

a sudden jolt and my eyes were ajar. an old stool stood tall

at the centre of my room; I recognized it from a time when busy

painters had used it to colour the house walls for my sister's wedding;

since then it sat abandoned in the backyard, forming ferric oxide.

disoriented, I snickered at what I had set out to explore — as if I

could climb the sevenfold height. I found myself motionless on the

last rung of the stool, with a noose decorating my shapely neck.

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