Missus Gaia Always Clutches At Me

Missus Gaia always clutches at me. Even when I leap with great vigor in the sunshine, the space between my feet and her skin is less than the gasp of a frightened infant. I fall back down. With persistence, she lulls me into a stoop, and I watch the constellations and imagine I am Orion, removed and too haughty for her base embrace. She sings to me more, and I am oblivious to the feel of Time sliding over me. Why are my bones so heavy? I lie down, and even this pitted rock is an easing caress, warm despite that all is ice. I look up, trying to find Orion, but he has spun away. I am too impatient for his return; my mind is perforated cloth. She offers another lullaby, verses swaying over a secret never even revealed in her womb, and I sink into her, my eventual dissolution a million seeds for minute futures invisible to me.