HEARTLAND
ORANGE RIDGE it is always at night, when i fi d my way back through the pines—to the hilltop whose trail is overgrown with honeysuckle vines, pale blue in the moonlight, silver tongues that coat my legs in nightsky; to the farmhouse, a beacon white against the night with little fi es within, orange sparks that vault themselves into the sky. the smoke makes its slow ascent. i fli ker under the dark tree cover as the mountain becomes a moment, fading. another place i can’t go back to, as they always are—burning through this one night that goes on forever, aimless but disguised as the flames that will swallow me alive.
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