Lychen bursts like fireworks around me
in different shades of green:
lime and split pea and mint.
The layers wobble and waver.
It’s as though a small child
ran through the canyon
while I lay on the rock all night
and colored the walls
outside the lines with
wild scribbles in
deep, angry red crayon.
STEPS
I focus on taking one step at a time
toward Dad.
He’ll find me.
He’s walking back to me right now,
just as I’m walking to him.
Then we’ll figure it all out together.
Step, step, step.
The air is warming.
My steps are faster.
My body is heating.
I’m so thirsty.
I stop at every puddle I find
in the sunken spots on rocks.
Each one seems smaller than the last.
I climb over a large boulder
blocking the narrow path
then reach a broader opening,
grateful for the space,
wide enough to let in more light,
wide enough for a flood-tattered ironwood tree,
debris littering its broken branches,
to grow from a seed blown down a long time ago.
Step, step, step.
I move around the tree
and the canyon narrows again,
shuts out the light.
Step, step, step.
Dad will find me soon.
LOSS
I see something in the distance,
sticking out of the ground.
As I near it, I find
a piece of garbage,
washed into the canyon
from who knows where.
An old plastic cup.
A sign of human life.
Garbage.
But a cup can be useful.
A cup can hold water.
Lifting it out of the mud, I find it’s only
part of a cup.
I try to put it in my pocket,
but it crumbles,
brittle from the brutal heat.
I wipe the pieces from my sore palms,
and they flutter to the ground
around a pile of broken shale.
One shard of gray shale catches my eye,
and I pick it up.
It’s flat and sharp on one end.
I run a finger along the razor-like edge.
It scratches me, draws a tiny amount of blood.
I slip the rock into my back pocket.
This stone knife could be useful
down here in the canyon.
I imagine myself using it
to skin the hide from a kangaroo rat
and snort at the thought.
I move my hand to my front pocket,
but the heart-shaped stone isn’t there.
My eyes blur and my lip quivers
and I want to crumble to the ground
like the fluttering, brittle bits of broken cup.
I wipe my eyes and bite my lip
and stay standing.
I don’t have time to get all
bent out of shape over a lost rock.
ENDLESS WALLS
The light
lowers
down the wall,
warming
the canyon.
How long have I been walking?
It’s hard to tell when I can’t
see the sun.
It already feels like I’ve walked
inches,
feet,
yards,
miles,
and
miles.
My steps quicken
and my heart speeds with anticipation
as I round every new corner,
expecting Dad to appear.
But all I find are more
walls made of waves,
like the water that carved them.
DEADLY
That sound. Effervescent.
Sizzling. Like Dad frying
sausage in the morning.
Coiled. Head held high and back.
Ready to spring, fill me with venom
if I get too near.
Tongue flicks over and over again,
smelling me, figuring me out.
A narrow tunnel of sunlight shines down
into the canyon, cracking the silt
under my feet and warming the snake.
It’s also drying the last of my puddles
and scorching my pale, sun-starved skin.
It must be about noon.
I pick up a stone from the canyon floor
and toss it at the snake,
which rattles its warning at me.
But it doesn’t move.
AWAY
I am so, so tired.
I am swaying on my feet.
I sit down on a rock
out of striking distance
and study the snake.
Looks like a diamondback
but
greenish tinge,
fading diamond pattern,
white rings on tail
wider than black rings.
It’s a Mojave.
Deadly venomous.
I have no choice
but to wait it out.
My head nods in exhaustion.
The warmth is like a drug,
dragging me under.
I keep my boots
on the canyon floor
as I lean to the side
and rest my head on the rock.
The stone is warm against my cheek
and arms, and I am instantly
drifting,
no longer concerned
about the deadly snake in my way.
I am gone, floating away,
into the darkness of my mind,
away to the place where he can find me.
ANOTHER LIE
You can be honest, Eleanor.
Who is the Beast?
Maybe you’re not listening,
Or don’t want to listen, but I have
No more to
Say.
The Beast is not
Even
Real.
PANIC
Booms
always come first.
Then the
blood.
I hear him.
He’s catching up with me.
Crunch.
Crunch.
Crunch.
I startle awake.
Jump off the rock,
then stumble back,
away from the rattling snake
I’d so quickly forgotten.
Do it now, Eleanor.
Rewrite your nightmare.
I can’t.
I am spiraling,
untethered and wild,
like the whirlpools
I spied in the flood.
I am sure the Beast is coming,
and the rattling of the snake
has become chains,
and the red of the canyon
has become blood,
and the shadows of the canyon
have become death.
Ground yourself, Eleanor.
COPING
Grounding techniques for
coping with PTSD:
Use your five senses.
GROUNDING
Where am I?
In the canyon.
What do I see?
The snake, walls around me,
dirt below me.
What do I hear?
The rattling.
At home I’d turn on music,
but here I speak out loud.
I am here, in the canyon.
What do I feel?
I reach out and touch
the canyon wall: