It’s dark and my heart is pounding.

I’ve been running for some time

and when I stop and turn around

The Fox is there.

It teases me with its crystalline eyes

Beckoning me to the chase.

I pursue, blood pumping through my legs.

I lose sight of it,

but at once hear footfalls behind me.

I turn around again

and the crystalline eyed beast is chasing me,

face in wide smile.

I awaken.

Sweat and pounding heart the only evidence of the pursuit.

 

I must go.

 

I begin the climb

Painful breath

My legs on fire

My head on fire

My heart threatens to burst into flames.

 

Frozen lake a mile below me

Taste of a warm wind and the beating of

wings above me.

Each hill steeper than the last.

I climb closer to the sun

but the air grows chilled.

 

On the backside of the mountain

the unheard winds roar through the canyon.

I hear them, the calling voices.

While snow crunches beneath my feet

The flames and fever reveal me.

In outrunning restlessness

I find I have been Utterly Consumed.

 

I laugh and lie down in the flames,

the truth of restlessness and desire illuminated

as my skin gives way.

 

I hear, at great distance,

the voice of the Lion

Offering to wrap me in robes

instead of flame.

And I must decide

to stay

or go.