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| Spiral Staircase [07.11.04] i've spent my life traversing, alone, a wall-less marble passage to Floor 3122064000. mostly i think i am climbing. but if i cast a backwards glance, the room snaps, pitches me prostrate, forces me to grasp at corners. ceilings tumble, floors heave-- breaths rasp and sweat drips-- no: i hear no sound; slips-- through the railing and vanishes: a globule of my own salt flesh, falling back to the familiar to stake claim on conquered territory. Or have i lost ground, forgetting, in my temporary frailty, which direction i am headed? my trail will always haunt me. So i brace myself against the vertigo and pray, and rise, and edge away from the footprints and pivot forward, compelled to face the shadows below at every upward turn. |