The Hedgehog

He curls at the sight: His world ripped away from him like a fresh hide.

Every memory a land mine; every outstretched limb in bed a phantom stab in the dark.

Once faeries and cuddlebears, now silence and muddied air.

Trees have turned mushroom-feed.

No cute names dripping like nectar;

they tear into flesh

like murderous glowworms.

The forest is a cavern; every scent

a charred turbinate, like earth

blitzed to powdered sweat.

He cries floods, but nothing grows;

Only space-time and theorems

yet to fathom, scattered in dust.

But he must go on. His little feet,

stuck in many mires must many-the-mile onward, must

make new promises, must

make anew and honest again.

And again.

And again.