bravery due to alcoholic haze

Dear New Yorker Poetry Department,

Please consider the following poem for submission.

Thank you,
Kristin Lane

lost
bones of sanity lost, missing
bare bleached, slender splinters
kindling to the avalanche of fire rushing through.
beside the glass ice lake
unmoving, unapologetic
in her reluctance, failure, refusal
to rescue herself from the stalking demons.
snakelike, the burned remnants of reason
rise twisting from the hissing ash and smoking steam.
they appear, wraithlike, on occasion to provide a sense
of normalcy, the apparition of things not lost forever;
a mind giving up on the recovery that
could happen, would happen, if she could
see through the haze and stinging stinking
fog from fire to the shadows that still
could recede, decline, vanish
in the sun that moves
skittering through her.

what she wants
to be figment, slipping thru fog and sunshine,
slight of frame and devoid of excess.
she walks the halls unseen, staring at the cracks.
brilliance in smile and thought
consumed with passions:
the inner workings of the world,
complexity of wordplay,
vibrance in color and form.
her figure strides with the shadows
buried in halls and piles of papers,
coat swishing around her in the cold night air.