Steam

I take flight and I am free. To move to power and propel and be. To travel through and with the spaces, weightless.

I am weightless. The cold is gone; the dam is gone. My skies are warm air and opportunity. I fly above it all, above the doubtful dams, above cracked ice and dents. I fly higher and higher to explore and renew. Begin. Yes, begin. The steam powers the piston and I propel forward. To begin. 

I fly high, seeing nothing but clouds and sky. I’m weightless, weightless, weightless…

(But still the weight—I forget the states I leave behind. Like water that flows, reflects; like ice that cracks, crumbles, cries.)

I am what I was; I was what I am. I pause, glide through the air, and encounter another dam. 

A cloud of realization that knows and haunts. It collects me, suffocates and taunts.

I can’t feel the heat of newness or the warmth of water; I can’t feel the cool touch of ice or freeze. I collect here, feel restricted in unease. 

I’m stagnant, a trapped transformation. 

I rain down to the surface as water, feel wind, and return, back to the stagnance, back to the cold. 

But as ice, I don’t crack; I take shape, I sculpt.