Grains of sand are falling down, speck by golden speck, leaving infinitesimally small scratches on this broken pane of glass. A million pieces shattered everywhere - no one to pick them up, to glue them back to solidarity. People will walk by and carry tiny shards away on the bottoms of their naked, padding soles. And will they pull them out? Or leave them bleeding and throbbing - let them burrow deeper and deeper until they themselves have absorbed that little piece of the looking glass? And does the answer even matter?

We live and die to be broken down, to pieces, composted, masticated, absorbed - picked apart bit by bit by those who want some parts of us, but not others. Picked apart bit by bit by insects that want some parts of us, but not others.

Not others.

Black,
your face is hidden
in the shadow of a promise,
too strong to keep,
too feeble to survive the fall
from your whispering lips,
too eager to be free.
I feel your breath coming in gasps
and heaves
as I lay my head
against your chest.
It permeates my very being,
swallows me whole,
consumes...devours:
I will lay here forever,
if that is what you require
to be well again.

...

the original version of this was much longer, but i can't bring myself to post the rest. maybe one day, after some editing and revising, i'll put it up. also, for some reason i did not date this when I wrote it, but I'm guessing it was some time near the end of 2008.