I set the box on the shelf, watched it click into place, aligning with the others: rows upon rows of boxes, identical, never changing.
The conveyor belt carried them up and away. Who knows where they are all going. All I know is that this is my home. The place where I'm safe. The place I belong.

The quail and whippoorwill went their separate ways. They fled the storm, diverging in opposing directions. Packed a suitcase and flew away, never to be seen again.

Don't get caught in the storm, she told me. But how can I get caught when I am in the center of it all?

I lay here in bed,
The thoughts in my head:
Grains of sand caught in a dance by the desert wind.
But as consciousness slowly slips out of reach,
They settle down somewhere else
Far away from where they started
In this tiny world of my mind.

My mind is an ocean
An ecosystem
Populated by thoughts that swim like fish.
My pen is a submarine,
Taking me places never seen before
The sea life down here are alien and beautiful.
The birds fly overhead
Never seeing past the surface,
Swooping down to catch a fish or two,
Never imagining the colourful creatures
Who reside in the lightless depths

I guess this is what a real life existential crisis feels like.
Small bits of thought swirl through my head,
A tornado of broken glass.
And now that the wind has settled,
I struggle to fit the pieces together
In a way that would resemble a window
Through which I might view myself.

I am an alien.
A being from another race.
You are not alone in the universe.
I've been sending signals toward your star cluster
For billions of years
Into the vacuum of space
With no response.
You are not alone in the universe.
There is so much possibility of knowledge.
Understanding.

I am a rouge planet.
Without a sun around which to orbit.
To give me warmth and life.
Small and insignificant.
All alone in the empty sterility of space.

Tiny whirling particles
Tumble as they descend from the sky.
I sit in the warm yellow library
As I observe them through the window.