Desolation

There is nothing left. I would write foolishly, 'I stand before an empty field,' when it would be more accurate to say that the empty field had always been within myself -- nearer and terrifyingly more personal. There is no wind, there are no leaves dead and dying. Old things break and crumble to dust under the skin of this old, old earth -- leaving no traces, allowing no histories. But what burns inside me if not fire? What wills me to move if not my own mind? This desolate vastness, this grey room, these white-paddded walls -- what binds everything together? What tethers me to this place? Why am I still here?