The jet stream crisscrossed sunset out my car window was a dawn of new sight. Darkness had long since smothered my breath. This sky became the crux of change, an escape from the desire for death’s cold arms. They streamed oxygen into my blood and suddenly I was alive.

I want rays of sunlight to drip E into me, to push my blood into former flames of desire. I want to experience the anchor of love’s awakening days. I need to run off a wooden dock and plunge into the coolness of a lake on a sweaty summer day. To sleep in dreams that leave me aching of emotion and awaken, shivering and grappling to hold on to fear or love until reality settles. I want to taste the twister of warmed coolness of baked peach pie a la mode or to sit on grassy slopes and watch people and write poems. I desire to lay next to a man and hear him whisper “Don’t move your lips, just let me kiss you” as his hand slides up my belly, until I let him know that stars exploding in our mouths were enough for the galaxy we were roaming.

Those jet streams in the sky, whispered future sights, dawns of fresh hope moved through my soul and my heart beat once again.

***

[This poem was written for my independent poetry project, centering on depression. This was the final poem written for the project. I wanted to have a prose-type poem as well as one that showed the speaker coming out of darkness. I think it still needs some revision, I just couldn’t figure out what tense to use. The images were largely taken from things I wanted to keep living for. It was hard to return to those days, but hopefully in the long run it’s helpful.]