All of it erodes.
Even language loses
its edge to the muddle.
Time the acid etcher
cries birdsong
to the black.
Every casual
exchange of words
spells death
to the common tongue,
births an alien grammar.
All of us caught
behind this frosting pane,
time bound and
time destroyed,
We are the still-born relics
staring out from
the old photograph.
We are the yellowed
letters found beneath
the floorboards at
the renovation.
We have become
our own exclamation marks.
A stranger is
rifling our closets
claiming our clothes,
putting our feather collection
on the curb.
The daily toll which
we mistook for life
was not life.
Every time a mind
is lost, a dream
is set free.