atlas I Tessa Muhle

atlas

Tessa Muhle ‘21

i am cosmically tired. my bones are fossils; my heart, a solid weight of lead dragging me down down d o w n

to a place i’m regretfully familiar with i look up to see rainbows fitting around taking the forms of birds and fowers and fantastic things. i cannot reach them

around me there is nothing but dust and stone and rock and bone. i scratch words into the prison wall with a crumbling fngernail.

is this what atlas felt like? with the weight of the world on his back, twinkling stars just out of reach of his grasping eyes?