Poetry: Smog

turned out my skin is much stronger against the mountain sun than I’d predicted earlier while trekking through black rocks toward a few Daoist temples in the distance pinpointed by floating white robes “you have crossed over, and you are waiting for us”

I extended my hiking stick further before my melanin came out of hibernation waking up in reluctance toward goldish rays cross-examined by layers of smog

there were tears yet they let themselves back to a time a worse time when there were no white robes visible no point to approach no fairness found in the skyrocketing prices of popsicles 1000 feet above the sea that bred me to wrestle with the moneymakers

and the zipline shut down right before the last people arrived: “they have crossed over, and that is unacceptable” we’d exclaim, and our skin will burn under the smogless sky

that is not to say we have lost our voices before we even found them --- look my uncle is still mad still inhaling his cigarettes in chains that kidnapped the bushes ahead turning them tar black with fire

and the people behind were using their coughs as a verdict to which he rebelled: “I have crossed over, and I have the right to celebrate” when the ashes retrieved their roots and the smokes ascended toward diagonal clouds

tomorrow my skin will remain in cream color as I rise on ground level my body breeds the sky that bred me and I will have my muscles remember the movements from when I kneeled to all five buddhas at the temple as not to be partial with my love

“I have crossed over, and it’s truly wonderful to breathe” inside a dome that temporarily filtered out the sun and the buddhas had these large expressions that held it up ------ what did not harm me was not purifying, either

today I wore better shoes to walk another route so I could grow larger than my blisters that emerged as traveling souvenir that I could show off to no one but those at the very moment one man who walked past us held two women in arms he wore a shirt that said “I have crossed over, to be in Switzerland”

we did not need solid weapons to fight the smog as it does not take actual form, not any more than a blockage of hope or an illusion of frailty

Switzerland is far but the peak was closer and the future represented far more than the now or so we thought

together we became directionless in our own steps but were never lost

instead we consolidated and the force was almost as powerful as the smog that was only visible around vivid things

listen darkness lingers to remind us of the light and my skin is doing its best to prepare for a day when the sunlight will shower through completely with affirmation