four years

for years I have been walking through this wasted terrain trying to find a way from this lost state

picking up shards of what seemed to be pieces of what I was seeking nonetheless proving a fools errand

these

scraps have wilted away as I tried to hold them in my tattered pockets

like Cabeza de Vaca I have gone days stripped of any clothing that gave me a sense of myself

made bare to the elements of hours in scorching sun

light fills my head from this vantage point

light can blind

light can strike

light can pierce and tear cells into shreds

in words I can not yet form on a page

I have not returned would that I could but rather

turned entirely into something else

titled as if I am found alas

it is not that

not found resigned to walk lost

and to walk