Take another step!

Raise your sore foot from the rain soaked earth

As the salty droplets that gathered on your forehead and poured down your face

Joined those fresh ones that dropped from the stormy skies,

And landed wearily with heavy thuds.

Inch forward!

Armed with new doses of determination your mind pumps into your body even

As the living corpse trembled and heaved,

Barely able to stay upright,

Until finally the columns gave in and the rubble slowed into a crawl.

But that next step is the mountaintop!

It is where dark green shadows clear, and 

A strand of light illuminates the tip of an island in the sea of swirling clouds;

It is where the rotten city morphs into a new frontier, and

The prairie grass rocks like ocean waves while buffaloes sail unrestrained;

It is where that gleaming trophy you covet in your most passionate dreams lie,

The harvest of endless endeavors yet to be reaped.

It is your next mountain of gold;

It is your next great aspiration;

It is that desperate desire shrouded in fiery flames.

And then you take that next step and reach the mountaintop.

But the dazed elation quickly pass 

like an ephemeral breeze that soothes your aching bones.

Then your body regains its former vigor,

And you see

In the distance a taller peak cuts through the stormy seas.

The flames that have quieted and the yearnings that have subsided

Begin to rage unchecked once more.

Suddenly, the wild frontiers become a forlorn place where the 

dreary landscape seem to stretch forever.

Suddenly, the trophy becomes rusty scrap metal

Entangled in thick cobwebs and a cloud of dust.

You want your next mountain of gold;

You want your next great aspiration;

You have another desperate desire shrouded in fiery flames.

Oh stupid flames! Cursed flames!

Flames that cut through the forest of peace

So that its wretched inhabitants scramble to take their next step,

Fleeing their cozy content dwellings

Until quiet fulfillment becomes insatiable hunger 

That preys on the innocent beings till they prey on each other,

And they are stained with each other’s blood,

Blood the color of the fiery flames.

Your legs scream as you take another step forward.

This step will be my last, you tell your legs, 

Because my deepest desires are finally within reach.

But the next step is never the last.

So you just take one more step, one more step…