The height of the ledge granted miles of visibility, from which I perceived a landscape so barren that decay itself had littered the earth with writings of its famine.
Fixed overhead, the harsh sun exhausted every part of my being as my eyes pooled with gratitude—for I could not imagine the state of my vision had the ground been more solid and hoary.
Abandoning hope of amelioration, I watched as the stone below binged upon the light—reflecting only that which met it between guzzles.
From this binge, a subsequent purge of radiant heat ensued, seemingly serving as a form of remittance to the air through which the energy had initially been permitted to pass.
Tracing the cliff's face, the newly heated air rose in gusts to the point at which it met mine—further immersing me in a growing sum of vertigo.
Overwhelmed, I took a step back and—despite my efforts—still somehow managed to collide with everything existing outside of my posterior. The view of the desert displayed itself to me in full; I saw a place unapologetically indifferent to acknowledgement or understanding.
Haunted by permanence, the thought of the city struck me—and I became overwhelmed by the disparity; I felt myself choke on the recollection of its nourishless bounty—an ever-expanding sea of stimulation, perpetually begging for attention: damning us to be pruned by its abundance while starving in its own growth.
For centuries, a desire for more has given reason to manufacture new means for innovation; and in its wake, it has left nothingness itself—the true logical default—to now stand as one of the few remaining novelties.

It's never quite right, he said, the way people look,
the way the music sounds, the way the words are
written.
It's never quite right, he said, all the things we are
taught, all the loves we chase, all the deaths we
die, all the lives we live,
they are never quite right,
they are hardly close to right,
these lives we live
one after the other,
piled there as history,
the waste of the species,
the crushing of the light and the way,
it's not quite right,
it's hardly right at all
he said.

don't I know it? I
answered.

I walked away from the mirror.
it was morning, it was afternoon, it was
night

nothing changed
it was locked in place.
something flashed, something broke, something
remained.

I walked down the stairway and
into it.

She
            makes
                             the
                                        sound
                                        The
                    ­      trees
             make
Me
             feel    
                          so
                                     at
                                              ease
Sleep...

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          why can't we erase

                    all the time we waste >