there was a
pond skater
on a placid lake
of frozen tears
slipping across
the icy saline
uncertain as to
anything
yet driven
all the same

it didn’t question
its surroundings
simply slid
in a deep seated
confusion of
miscalculated
instinctual failings

i do not know
if i am
the pond skater
or the flash frozen
crystallized sorrow
and i am not positive
it matters
either way

i need to recalculate
this doomed trajectory
but i am nothing more
than the shadow of a flame
an abstract inversion
of a dream you didn’t know
you kept having
the countermeasure to
your heartbeat trailing
the pockmarked sorrow
of the pale moon fading

skater or lake
it is my absence
that cracks the
pristine surface