notes north of 57

thumbtack pinches in my fingertips,

an idling dessert fridge 

my body doesn’t wake up, there is no sun.

i miss the touch of the damp grey air and her soft dark curls

i’m cracking like the earth we break open to look inside.

throwing magnets into the formations of oil, 

hoping to capture something that can’t be seen

everybody’s watching me, i’m trying to get out.

there’s no time to be me

so few birds this far north, 

i haven't even spotted the magpies. 

beams of light shoot into the atmosphere.

i haven’t seen the stars, even though i'm engulfed in the darkness. 

two figures fall out the side of a machine i’m not sure the name of.  

white, blank canvas all around me, but it’s too black above to create.

it’s black and dark and empty inside me too. 

do they know i’m here?

deprived of control 

idling, they fill the atmosphere and their gas tanks

i felt like a foreign object as they shook their dirty hands with mine.

i can’t sort out my mind sometimes 

! s c a t t e r b r a ! n e d !!!

overseeing my thoughts dispersing like the clouds of hurt that emit out of white barns of resource extraction 

unsustainable actions

of my own doing, and those out of my grasp