Mary E.Pearson

Journey’s end. The promise. The hope.

Tell me again, Ama. About the light.

I search my memories. A dream. A story. A blurred remembrance.

I was smaller than you, child.

The line between truth and sustenance unravels. The need. The hope.

She commanded, and the light obeyed. The sun, moon, and stars knelt and rose at her touch. Once upon a time …

Write it down, he had told me.

Write down every word once you get there,

Before the truth is forgotten.

And now we do, at least the parts we remember.

The ghosts are still here.

Soon, all the destruction would be in the belly of the earth. Who would remember?

Weakness made you a target, and I had promised myself, long ago, I would never be a target again.

Because power, I had learned, could be just as seductive as a warm loaf of bread, and the small bit I wielded over them was sometimes all the food I needed.

I became a plucked bird flapping featherless wings, suddenly useless,

There was nowhere to hide. No shadows to melt into, no tent flaps to duck behind or stairs to disappear under—there were no beds to hide beneath in case someone came for me. There was no place to escape to at all.

We have touched the stars,

And the dust of possibility is ours.

But the work is never over.

Time circles. Repeats.

We must ever be watchful.