antiquities

I wake to the attention of flies, pure intention dirty on my failing face. Fairy wings buzzing in the window, as the heat drains from my wallowing heart. It is the same room, the same shadow, the same absence of skin in the game. Out of all I've lost I find my feet. I linger seated, staring at them on the grubby floor. Just one foot after another like that childhood Christmas special song. Steps like years, leading to the same sort of nowhere. I follow my resignation out the door.

There are maps made of paper, maps marked and creased with wear and work. There are photographs smudged with remembering and fingers that still could feel. Ships sunk full of Spanish gold, dreaming in old curses and false pride. Remnants of another age, antiquities spilled careless, folding into dust. This faith of blood and bounty. These words that no-one will ever find or feel. One wind, then once again. This tide of breath and sky.

I would say something,but you can't hear me. I speak in a rusted colloquy, in an obscure argot thick with fleas and fur. I cast my shadow towards you, but it cannot reach you until it reaches deep with the night. Then all my wounds and failings can mingle in the silence of your sleep, the blessing of not knowing a finger pressed against the lips of boorish fact and rigid matter. We can sleep on through the ruin, dreaming out this fantasy in the crush and press of these naive inspirations. We can keen and we can pray. All the stars gaze ambivalent,  while I lean outside my skin and wish for what will never be.