Pulse as tether.
Mind, a blade dulled on bone.
Ash drips from the ceiling of thought
no light, only the hiss of burned names.

Tongues calcify in jars of dusk.
Flesh remembers what silence forgot.
Smoke blooms in the mouth of sleep.
Pain suckles the root,
wants nothing but to stay.

Grief is a handless clock
still turning.
Still carving
where nothing remains soft.