A tree had been cut; the stump was tender and poked out of the ground. I stood beside it and watched as the wind rolled past and blew off a few splinters and wood shavings and leveled a white asphodel. My hair was blown into a parting, which whipped my eyes; rain lashed my face.

“Don’t be too strong with your words. They brought about this wind and leveled that asphodel and now they bring the tears to your cheeks and lash your eyes. You don’t want this, do you?”

I looked into the driver’s mirror thinking to myself. My hairline has receded; my eyes are black; my jaw is crooked and pained. I’m so lonely. The car pulls down the I-90 and endless woods unfold outside the window; sometimes lakes glisten. My brother talks again:

“This country is so vast.”

“Yeah,” I reply.

The day withdraws around 7pm, and I sit in my room, tapping my feet on the tiles. The loud hum of the computer breathes in my face, and I have a pile of unread books in front of me. The world is just an empty shell wringing with ants, and I’m thoroughly discouraged by it. I try and pick up a book, but it’s too heavy, and now it’s midnight. My brother’s voice echoes in my inanity, and it brings me to the edge of my seat.

“You need a friend.”

A dog bark echoes around the courtyard, and I’m sitting in my garden in England. My family is gathered around the table, and they jeer at me. I’m crying; steam pours out of my ears, and my eye sockets bulge in their interminable sadness. Memories flood into my mind, and I remember sleeping in the garden on a mild summer’s night; I’m watching for shooting stars because I’ve never seen one before. My brother lies next to me and speaks:

“It’s windy tonight. Late too. The poppies have mostly died now; their heads are like turtle shells.”

The brakes aren’t working. I shouldn’t be driving. I’m too young.

The wall’s sharp. Be careful not to run too close; it will cut you.

Her blood is thick, and there are clumps in it. It runs sadly and slowly, and every song is a funeral song.

A thousand dreams fill my skull. Death dreams from infancy that haunted my school days. Nights spent sat up not sleeping for fear of another dream about death. Nights spent listening to the radio and realizing that every song truly is a funeral song (or the last triumphant stanza against death). I walk out of my room and into the toilet, and I hate sharing with these animals who piss on the walls, up the floor, throw toilet paper around, shit on the seat. I leave without having pissed. I can’t bring myself to it, so I just wash my hands, walk out.

The tiles on the floor of my dorm click as my heels bounce off them. Everything burns under my feet, and I walk down the stairs self-consciously and fall onto the banks of the creek. My head pushing against the soft breeze, my eyes brimming with water, weeds, soil, plants, trees dedicated to the dead and skeeters bouncing off the water’s surface.

“Bring it home,” my brother’s voice cried, and prose has a wick in eternity waiting to blast the fish out of the water and the mud out of my eyes.