they don’t tell you how you’ll 
be damned to New Dante 
because of how pain 
looks so easy when you wear it; hung 
like a poly-blend, draped
some-kind-of-casual across your 
breastplate, all things 
you are seen carrying 
will be called weightless— 

if you can dance through it, 
the floor must be more 
melody than molten —

if you can sing through it, 
the air is clearly not choked with
smoke born of burnt soles danced
through the fires —

in the morning, when your mouth is dry,
and your lungs are full,
and your feet remind you of your Father’s —
in the morning, when your moons have gone quiet —
in the morning, when your suns have died —
in the morning, they will judge you
for your proximity to
the dark matter as if you had 
stolen their light by
remembering yourself.

//Niles M. Heron is a 28-year-old poet and entrepreneur. Detroit-born-and-bred, he grew up locally but lived and worked in Los Angeles and then San Francisco from 2007 until moving back to Detroit in 2014. He fields life questions and shares some of his writing and thinking at www.nilesheron.com. Twitter/Instagram @nilesheron.