"death wears the mantle of absurdity"

- and alight the cord
to see the inward lamp glow again
watch the room unroll
like eyelids opening,
let it fill the space.
the walls are bare and pale as bone
and the ceiling has been pried off,
like a cardboard box cut at the top,
and the sky: a mirror above it.
the light reaches towards the mirror
and there's no reflection -
the lamp has short arms,
clumsy fingers like a child
and cannot keep the sky
but for the stars reaching back
through pin-pricked holes.

the imagery whispers
quietly in neutrals,
bone white and starlight alike
speaking back and forth
on the folly of the universe outside
and how it only seems to exist for decay.
they do not laugh at the absurdity;
they feel as if they are the same,
living reflections of the stars' cycles -
life for the purpose of death,
death for the purpose of perpetuation -
and when their story ends
the inward lamp burns it's course to expiration,
but this is not the end.
you need to reach -