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I release a rich, mulberry cloud of a sigh into the atmosphere of the nine-by-nine dominion I call "Home". Within it sleeps the ingenue that I long-thought was the apex of my quasi-mature, teenage heart. It and she will soon brood alone in the blackest heights of the room. I couldn't see the ceiling with the Hubble bolted to the floor.
      
I never knew being light felt this good. My desultory dalliance left scars on my shoulders, notches for her to hang her sloth-arms upon. I undress. I lower myself to the ground. The more my skin kisses the marble, the less woebegone my bones feel. Warmth radiates from the marrow into my lymph nodes. The heat spills out from my body and onto the ground, reaching for each corner of my icy bungalow. From below me, the marble murmurs in a hum as soothing as petrichor:

I have missed this warmth.
For too long I've been frozen,
I have missed your warmth.
Mountains perked out from the Earth as if Atlas himself was attempting to break free from his subterranean cage. These gargantuan, green, organic monoliths stood as gatekeepers of Lone-lands, and watched as low-hovering clouds swirled and swayed around them. Not fluffy white clouds, but deep gray, angry clouds, clouds that move freely with the orchestra of the land. Like a heartbeat, the mountains pulsed and made the horizon jagged and alive. I studied these clouds and hills until sleep bested me. My eyelids shut, and when I opened them again, the gatekeepers were no more. The horizon's heartbeat had flat-lined, and all I could see was an empty blue sky meeting the Mojave shrubbery and sand.
Bongo drums march a parade of elephants through a stunning and sweet Savannah.
One or two look up to the sky, but immediately stop moving. They get trampled.
The rest don't dare to; they know that when the
Sun dances its beautiful waltz,
a glimpse can render any being glossy-eyed and so entranced that
they forget how to run.
The Earth rolls its eyes at the boasting of a solar diva.

***

Vines vibrate like guitar strings as they're gripped by night monkeys,
Navigating a black jungle huddled underneath a lunar flashlight pointed towards Earth.
The owls don't feel like hunting for mice;
They wanted to join in the jungle's campfire.
Animals play brass horns and steel drums to the audience of tropical trees.
And right after the wilderness finishes its nightly romp,
The mountains loosen their grips on the buried, sunlit sky and let it revolve back up to the top.
The Earth laughs along at the Daytime's obliviousness to its sister's festival that eludes it.

— The End —