the final frontier

when we passed through the mountains of utah,

strange, looming, repressive, dark,

so dark even the lights of the highway

and the yawning, dizzying swallowing

of galaxies too visible, too accessible—

even these million lights could not touch

the gaping pressurized darkness

of that unfamiliar landscape,

so dark it absorbed the light of his voice,

so dark I could not be reassured

when we passed through the mountains of utah,

full of invisible beasts, brutes, fiends and foes,

crudely built, unidentified by science,

like a new, harsh planet where the natives

aren’t friendly, I was sure they were mean—

I mean malicious; I mean inferior; I mean

starving—just the shadow of that potential

was enough to convince me of their reality,

their cruelty, their intentions toward me

and their superior tracking abilities.

when we passed through the mountains of utah,

rocks stacked by some old,

unseen hand, rocks stacked unnaturally,

at least for what I knew, too geometric,

too jagged, too intentional,

and far too tall, like little elevators to space,

shapes on shapes, rectangles that touch and negate—

when we passed through the mountains of utah,

I had a panic attack that lasted thirteen minutes.