Literature
Radiant Decay
Life teaches us lessons in interesting ways,
often creating a shocking experience
that reveals a harsh reality.
Life lessons are disruptive
an icy snowball to the face
when you're not anticipating it.
Truths like these are grounding,
they make you stand on a thin
veneer of reality you didn’t realize
was there.
There isn’t a neon arrow to guide
you from this point. What you are
feeling is an entity older than all the
languages of the world: older even
than the ice in the abyss.
You are slipping from self‑certainty.
What you feel is the ventilation air
kissing the edge of your body,
or the cold autumn air crackling from
the nonexistent garden.
With every creaking floorboard,
the world inches closer to collapse.
The air falls quiet, becoming the
soft disintegration of all you once
believed you could abandon.
You will soon find
that the reality beneath your feet
is little more than a surface:
a crumbling, groaning, creaking,
disheveled world.
People hold impossibly high
