Drifting Away on the Inside

Not to rage against.  Not the whole of a nation grinding to a halt.  Not to leap from a jagged cliff with arms outstretched.  Not bloody martyrdom amid sprays of gunfire.

Instead…just this once…to quietly slip out the back door while the rest of the family whispers in another room.  To drift out, numbed, amid the field of red poppies.

The clouds now frozen in place.  The rivers gone away.  The songbirds quiet.  Not to walk, but to float toward the chain of mountains that never clear from the mist.

--Mitchell Hegman