Emergence

I didn’t stop.

I couldn’t stop.

I wanted to.

Or I thought I did.

Trod on, fumigated, rolled into a dustpan and dumped out the door, I crawled into my cocoon--

slightly mashed, dented and crippled.

Two years pass...

I emerge.

Brighter?

Wiser?

Winged?

None of the above?

Still alive.  Still moving. 

With a place of my own.

And the dream engine I had thought too old and tired to churn out anything shiny or even a little hopeful

Coughs out the tiniest vapor;

it sparkles like a diamond chip in the sunlight.