She Walks Backwards

I feel such an intense heaviness that sometimes it is difficult for me to even rise from my bed. I do, but it is at the bidding of the beast itself. That creature whose hope and despair are not mine, who walks towards me with smiles and good intentions while trying to climb on my back and carry me away

I cannot help her. She does not hear the truth of my words, only the condemnation of her actions. It is not that she will not haul and hoe, water and work. It is only that she walks backwards while she does it. Leaving deeper holes in old footprints. Her work removes the flowers and leaves the weeds.

I feel like Peter Rabbit, stuck in the garden of eden, running for his life, trying to get out, grateful, at last, to stash myself away in the darkness of an old pot, looking up at the light.