tethered

she is tethered to this earth by a plateau of solid rocks
although, not solid: shifting
not stationary
rifting through the chasms of her mind as she tries to unwind
the knot of her memories, of moments she is lost in,
the spider's silk web too slippery to salvage.

she is ensnared by the morning sunlight shining across his skin.
digging in to her shin, the rock grows with
regret;
she will not forget
the vastness of the starlit sky as they laid beneath it
in the humidity of a summer's night
when life was ahead of them (and stones just beneath)
a platform, possibilities as abundant as their days left on earth
but she is terrified
now that she has so few

she is tethered to this earth by a plateau of shifting rocks
she is the sum of these rocks
and the paths she has tread across them, between them,
beneath them at times
and she finds (even as she stumbles through this wasteland)
beauty in the things that tether her:
the blooming of a flower between the fissures of the stone
or the smile of her child, or the serenity of being alone.

and maybe, she realises, as the stone crumbles down,
life is not about becoming untethered
but about the balance
between who we want to remember
and who we must.