everyone knows something
that you have never heard of.
and there is one thing that you know
which no one else does.

don't you feel special?

one list, two hands
cut off at the wrists,
three and a half bags of sand.

for centuries I was in constant dread
of this night:
the culmination of something
that was only pure
and strangely clean,
yet it still made us tremble.

all these people
progressing like a restless sea
shifting plates under my feet
everyone is here.

no one is here.

emerging from the cave
and quivering even so.
hundreds of faces,
those colors blended together
an onslaught of trepidation.

[just like raw skin,
I feel it more than a muscle does.
I'm the untreated wound;
I am shuddering at the touch.]

don't shoot --

you'll scare the animal away.

oh, but it's too late.

these days,
it's a gradual, shaky descent;
I'm waning, deteriorating,
I can feel myself getting worse.

I am not a rock
nor do I fall through fingers
like water,
and I can tell that you're parched.
I can feel you trying
to melt me.

you can't hide in the bushes
or pull the floorboards up over your head
anymore.
it's gone too far.

where's the fun
in someone
you can't drag around?

see how the animals
scatter immediately
from the empty field
as the rifle is fired.

look at how inconvenient that is.
it isn't worth it.
and now it isn't a secret.

no one knows
until they know.

and now they know.