the bones surround you,
starved from the dried-up sea.
you make your way through the maze,
darkness bearing down on the desert,
cold as a wintry mountain night

somewhere between the tail
and the cavernous rib cage
your pride follows behind,
a shadow of who you know you can be
lost in the wilderness of the boneyard.

you pick through pieces of skull,
sifting for the brainwaves that once
put thought into these bits of bone,
the iciness of your surroundings
building a tenacity you didn’t know remained.

your muscles tighten, the heartiest moving
you into a rhythmic undefined melancholy
through the motions of unreachable stars,
and you give in, release yourself to the night
just as Aurora touches your cheeks with her fingertips.

you resist, the dawn’s first touch as cold
as the depths of the boneyard in its darkest hour,
but the gentle kiss of radiant light awakens you,
casts away the shadow you’ve let fall behind,
and guides you to the mouth, the opening, to freedom.