{Excerpt}

…What is my blood? The origin and chemistry of the esoteric, abstruse and reviled…Spilled in rivulets of loss, the gnashing of teeth, set in a trap of rust clad iron, medieval and torturous, chained and bound, I’m a ship of a singular fool that ran aground, anchored to my undoing, tethered to a decision of drastic nature, I allow the teeth to sink straight through, devouring and severing me from the dead weight of my trapped limb, grappling at the earth, dead leaves shatter like glass with each palm slap…I pull away…blood trails in a most horrific fashion, giving weight to skeletal debris, I have no means for a tourniquet, resigning myself to the demise of another beast at the hands of ignorance…but what man steals out of folly and with disregard, nature avenges, gifting liberation and sovereignty…from the gaping wound, from my blood, a rhythm, a drum beat echoing off the earth, rattles of the venomous hiss in low tones, punctuating the night, widespread wings build a pulse in undulation, soothing my threshing body with silken winds, easing my evolution from extinction…

E.A. O'Connell