The Thermosphere is Descending

The thermosphere collapses downward, and beneath it,
the air curdles—a poisonous, living fire.
Night itself stops breathing between blinks,
while a shapeless terror cinches tight around the heart.

Will the road of life now fray into the void?
Or shall I shatter against the pinnacle,
drowned in this gilded avalanche?

I hold dialogues with my shadow,
twisting disaster’s earlobe between my fingers,
tasting its iron.
I will keep watch,
a blade against the epoch’s lie.

Not one tremor of doubt remains—
no rehearsed riots, no slogans—
only this relentless forward motion,
a wheel refusing rust.

Yet if a weary spring wind stirs
against my climbing body,
might it inscribe in my very cells
the old human interrogations?

Even as the banyan of love
browns at the edges,
each falling leaf
a syllable in its slow,
golden
goodbye.