Under the burden of the wind she cowers

Squinting through the red dust

That circles her in a taunting suspicion.

Crimson nothingness erecting the moon’s illusive tides

In which each cold gust fate had blown.

Wind, that tastes of the bitter turn of Autumn,

That cries as she cries now.

Bloodied fists

Pounding against all that sees her dull eye,

Red dust

Intertwining, encrusting the fractures of her spine,

Noosing her chest to the promise of the future

And limb to affliction of the past.

Red dust

Embracing her fair neck under the omniscient moon,

Like a snare coated by nature’s damp concealment,

Binding her to what she has not overcome.

And yet,

Ever still,

Under the burden of the wind she cowers.

Hiding, Hiding,

Red dust builds as jagged nails stab at her cheek

The vigor in her neck,

The shade of her breast,

Hiding as red dust hardens to stone,

Locking her feet in chilling soil to where she denied escape.

Frozen within the blinding Autumn night,

Rising to the beauty ignorance was sworn to perceive.

And yet, evermore, she remains still.

Around her toes, this red dust is threaded,

‘Tween her wrists, the wind is bound.

Under the stone, she hides nevermore,

A magnificence mistaken in judging eyes of self-reflection

Not the thriving rose, but its trusted stem,

With lips untouched by this deep flush, paled in its own stunning victory;

A craft from her gentle curl of splendor’s compassion

For the petals of that rose.

The rose that which she grips

‘Tween the stone

Through the red dust

And under the burden of the wind.