Psst, I have a secret.
Is this a symptom?

Hearing my own voice
calling out loud

in an empty field.
The sun shines brilliantly—

spilling all over the prairie,
finally fully covered

in snow.

I know you couldn’t wait
for me. I needed to find

my own bottom. Could not
borrow yours. My diagnosis

mine to make. Spared. Then not.
A week of

my life erased.
I tried to wipe them all

off the calendar
back then. Now,

I say all this
to remind the stars

(I cannot see)
how much I would give

to make my own
light. I whisper only to them

what the trail across that prairie
means to me. I return to things.