Spinning, spinning.
I can’t see a thing.
The world is a cloud,
a cloud of sparking orange,
blazing yellow,
and lustrous gray dust.

The smell of burnt flesh
and spilling blood…
It’s a stream of red paint,
led-poisoned and pungent,
staining my soot-covered skin
a gleaming red.

I can’t breathe.
I can’t think.
I am drowning in a puddle,
a puddle of red.
This world I see is dark
and presses down on my ribs
with never-ceasing pressure.

And as the scorched earth
and brilliant red stream
turn to a black prison,
I remember the way my feet used
to run, the way the wind whipped
my hair…

I felt so free…
I was free…
But now freedom is a burst of orange—
died away, turned to ash.