the dust on my boot, just fine grey powder, but today it felt like a coating of everything people refuse to see. the mountain just IS. it doesn't ask you to pretend. it strips you bare, shows you the raw edges. and still, still they come up here, fighting the grade, fighting the air, fighting the goddamn TRUTH of what's inside them, all while expecting the rock to give them some easy answer. there's a tightness in my chest, not from altitude, but from the sheer exhaustion of watching it. how many times do you have to fall before you learn to just lean into the damn slope?