this morning I tidied my space,
pulled out my table, set my tablet upon it.
when something pulled me
to look where I hadn’t.

old notifications, long put off.
somehow, I found last year.
I dared to stare into the abyss;
I scrolled back, exhuming

the collapse.

noting every snag as a potential
butterfly effect—softest wing beats
causing crashing tides, marking the moments,
blood-red between the lines.

I saw the foretelling
of the corpses
buried next to buckets
of false gold.

but it wasn’t worth the excavation.

artifacts came up tarnished
relics: rusted to nothing
but crumbling red-orange refuse
long lost to the salt of life

not a bay of buried treasure,
not even the bones remained;
only disappointing, long-dead,
rotted out wood.