(The Call of the Void)
Gliding across floorboards,
A boy is guided to his bedroom window.
Feet flexed in quiet complicity,
Breath shallow,
Life overflows from his lungs,
Life runs down his body,
Seeps everywhere,
Consumes him,
Vitality fills space with youthful discovery.
Dark and visceral sky beckons him,
Artemis taunts him closer,
Sleep pulls him away,
Dragon’s mouth opens,
The window is open,
Assailing wind,
Whipping curtains.
He knows mother’s rules,
They contain him.
He knows this space is not his,
Mother will worry,
Voices like knives will follow him
But blackness beckons,
The night cloaks him,
The sun is dissolved into a million stars,
Artemis warns him,
I’m leaving and the sun will return, child.
He leaves himself,
Leaping out,
Expanding,
Passing life,
Traveling inky, sticky air
He rests outside his window,
Sobbing,
Discovering grass,
Clouds and stars,
Eternal sky as tiny as his eyelids.
