There is only space
In my endless, uninhabitable wasteland.
You cannot move for it, from it.
It chokes the atmosphere, guillotines all life
With its barren hostility.
I did not fashion this dying Hades from nothing.
Cerberus could not wrestle from the fiery womb
Without the tarblack medicine I fed him
Pandora's demons should have perished in my presence, withered
When I desired only to replenish them, permitted their
Ancient chaos to govern my censored empire.
Here, we care only for the flesh and marrow of our indigenous filth
Revelling as it coats us, creeps, blinds, smothers
Fills our scabbed eye sockets with dancing spectres.
I never knew this was the only way to live until I lost
My sense of direction, and found instead
The fleeting antidote to an endless choice.
Inside, my own true starry Hell.
FIRE 22, p 29; Zoe Froggatt