unwelcome guests

it’s strange, for I thought
nothing would be like this
this soon.

I thought pain. the harbouring,
wind comes in and brings winter,
icicles, blizzards.

I thought isolation. the minimalist,
soul-quenching solitudes that keep the mind
busy busy busy.

but when the trees came down,
burned in this fire,
the fuel kept me alive, just barely.

here I am, in a desert,
the kind where loneliness may still find me,
lurking amongst the scorpions and minimal plant life.

but I exist, without the same quantities
of old enemies,
the ones who shifted into my life for a time.

unwelcome guests.