- By Ryan Oliveira
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.