a thousand sirens sigh
their barren echoes bounce between the buildings
I was one of them once, though you may not know it
you may have thought I am the sinewy, simpering silence
that slithers through the cracks in the blacktop
Or maybe the stone-like clouds that hover
like buzzards awaiting their withering prey
Perhaps even the sunlight that breaks the mountains into fractions
but I am the mould on the shower door
I am the water circling the drain
I am the faces you forget
and the feelings you have lost and the floor that drops beneath you
I have seen the walls collapse around you
I have been the unbearable light that broke through afterwards
to try and caress you, but leaving you blind
I am comprised of images tethered by fraying twine
I speak not in words, but whispered syllables that slice the air into two
as I am divided and put back together too
I am not even a rag doll but Geppetto’s tears on the desk
not even Lazarus, I have only the pleasure of dying once
I am everything you think I’m not, and maybe a bit more
but yet every second and year I’m reformed
i perish and get hacked back together with hands
that shake with their needles haphazardly sewing
and leaving me in darkness to find where I’m going
as each step leads me back to that desk
to become the Ship of Theseus in flesh
what I am feels hardly human, yet is just what we are
each day is a performance, another me every scene
the world is not a stage
but every person is
populated by an inevitable crowd
of familiar marionettes
**