I am trapped in a pit of gargantuan sand. Even Castle Rock gave me a foyer for my folly to play the obsidian chips Now there is only me and this motion-starved bleakness, this derision pressing me two-dimensional At least I have run before— wind-rabid through a gale, all tendon and escape At least I have screamed like the final girl and slipped the last convulsion of doom Now there is only me watching the sand leech the sacred air, that frail holiness between my lungs and the gravity of this hell-made real The vision invites vertigo The world wheels in Van Gogh arcs, fever-bright, delirious at the edges, and I inherit the same blessing So I thrash until my hands turn claws, until the wildcat in me wakes scratching This is no fight to defer till daylight. Barbarossa is already on the horizon. The battle has chosen today.