There is a point where the light reaches the darkness, and it cannot chase the dark away anymore. At that point, I reach my hand across the divide and my fingers turn to dust. Somewhere out there the sun shines on a planet at a distance accurate to the thousandth decimal and life drains backwards into a fossil. I feel the mountains gather speed around me, suddenly I'm in a valley and there is no way out. The natural incline of the hills are too steep for unused legs, for neglected muscles, only the burning desire of the heart to get out, the determination of the mind to escape. But the physical body, my skin that keeps the blood from staining my bed, it restraints me to the mattress. In the mornings I awake and am unable to sit up. There are moments where the world places its grubby hands on my shoulders and shoves, clothes become imperfect, bruises flowering. Yet the gradual darkening of the skin reveals its weakness. The tip of a knife can split an epidermis like a ripe banana. Eyelashes fall off and my heart leaps out of my body.

It would do well to remember this. That sometimes I try to take a step and I succeed.