You have consumed me.

What I once was is no more

I am naught but what you yourself are,

though in truth I know

nothing

of who you might be.

 

 

I did not at once realize

that you were here, until I looked around

and perceived the bare veil of translucence

of lingering

of listless silence

of an ancient soul that has relinquished

no divine secret.

 

But you do remain,

and you remain as ink

indelible,

invariable,

illegible,

soaked into the fibers of my being

not exactly black, but a sort of gray

typical of withered old skin and the color of

the glimmer of asphalt as it is hit by rain.

 

And you have molded me,

shaped me with your beautiful old fingers,

pressed into me with your melancholic age,

delving deep and

unraveling, unfolding

my creases,

setting things of whose nature I could never know,

weaving them into my sinews,

braiding them about my neck.

 

I am wasting.