Clutched that last pinecone, as it threatened
to tumble out of my arms, and when I look up
You, father, are clutching your chest, with eyes blank
And yet I could hear your thoughts,
crashing down on me, like meteorites
Only hotter, as they burned through my scalp,
until all I could feel was pain, with a hint of remorse,
some helplessness, some guilt, some unknown emotion
As the sky tore up in order to reveal the darkest brightest cloud
I had ever laid my eyes upon
I could not lie, I was mortified,
Mortified to the point where I lost the memory
of you pulling me out of the freezing lake
Yes, you did, you did save my life, more than once
And there I was, a figure with an abundance of pinecones
some helplessness, some guilt, some unknown emotion
The ground beneath my blistered feet, is it shaking?
Or do my legs deceive me, in the wake of the shock
that you are falling, falling to the ground, which, alas
is opening up to swallow you, whole
How can I let this happen, why would my arms falter
When the only being I know who lives for me
Is dying on me, how will I ever scrape this memory off
And I was right, I have not, I still live with it
For it is as essential to me as the sensation
of breathing, perhaps, or sight, or tone
or so much more
I just wish I was anything but four, or more
For that minute of the life of mine
pulls me to the edge of the very pit
I struggled to escape, since forever,
All I can hear is the music of a robin
In the distance, and the hollow sound
of the deadly pinecones
As they escaped my grasp,
and tumbled down the hill,
into nothingness
