The Extent of My Existence

It is there

The breeze shifting through the trees

in the woods calling my name

The leaves move and dance -- light speckling through --

giving grace to anything under its canopy of green

But I am less full of life,

less able to move,

and the beckoning of the woods

is a calling that is uncomfortable

and distant

Instead, I lie in the dark,

exhausted and without mirth,

craving for a day of vitality

Unsure it will ever come,

I close my eyes and give in

to something that feels

much more

like death than life

and, for now,

the walk in the woods

will come only in a dream

afterwhich

I will awake

having felt more alive when I sleep

than in life itself, so

I am left only to wonder

if this is

the extent of my existence