Heat scorching from the ground

Like the hands of hell

Are scratching at your shins

Ripping away tendon and muscle from bone

Hot like blood escaping your body

Such an exhaustive heat

That crushes on my chest

My lungs struggle for a clear breath

But it rattles heavily against my sternum

As if a balloon blocks the way

Of my breath exiting my throat

Lo in the distance a singular dandelion puff

Grows from the inferno below

A ghost pulling away from limbo

The pappus holding tightly to the seed

Its resiliency rooting down yet growing 

From all that it opposes against it

Am I to eventually blossom

The lion’s teeth spreading like sunshine

Along the mountaintops

In the wax and wane of spring to summer

If only for a moment before

My body reclines into the rest I am deserving?