Glacier by Abigail Brooke Ackles

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I am a glacier.
I do not move,

I do not feel.
Not even the feeling of being a being.

The world, water flows around me, not through, never within.
Nothing is within.
Not anymore.

I should be sinking.
I float.
Not that I care.
Why would I care?

Lips blue and purple
The cold, bone deep.
It is all cold.

How did the warmth taste?
How did the burning sun caress and kiss my face? Blossoms that
used to grow from within my chest, blushed cheeks, swollen
breasts. Marmalade toast and sweet summer strawberries. Legs
that used to run and jump and dance through fields of sunlight
and gold,
Joy that radiated and shimmered within my soul.

An act of worship.

Not anymore.

She is lost.
She is gone.
Escaped.
A husk.
A whisper of a memory.
I continue to exist.

Frozen, drifting in this solitude.
A casket of my own.

of ice
of darkness
of sorrow
of mourning

of nothingness.

---

ABIGAIL BROOKE ACKLES is a multimedia artist who splits her time
between Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Chicago, Illinois. She uses her work
to explore the intersectionality of different mediums while staying rooted
in photography. Ackles is currently in attendance at School of the Art
Institute Chicago in pursuit of her BFA.