There is a path.
Its rickety bridges dangle you over the jaws of despair;
I welcome the jagged teeth with pursed lips.
A planet does not choose its sun.
This diminutive island orbits obediently, tracing an oblong avenue
Around a heavenly beacon which burns at close range,
But protects from the uncharted perils of a frozen infinity
Beyond the horizons of our understanding.

Books.
Here they are seemingly as plentiful as stars in the great expanse.
For every one I read, there are a thousand more
That could pour out of my fingertips without warning.
Here on these shelves (and in my hands) are words –
Legions of ideas, cries for help, and declarations of the self –
Collecting dust to pass the time.
Bound by a spine, each page is a painting,
Or a singular brush stroke;
It depends where on the museum’s crisscrossing paths
We place it.
I am allowed to manipulate
These likenesses with my own unkempt paws.
I sift through each layer with great care.
Poised above my isolated figure is a cloud of silence.
Luridly dark, it threatens to immerse every shelf in its corrupting solitude.
My fascination decays into sorrow.
Curators grow weary.
Thick lenses become damp with labored breath.
A tomb of these words encases the regenerative key
Our depleted cityscape so desperately needs.
But the museum has not received enough submissions; funding is being cut.
Fingers spanning a soiled palm have grown tired of the dirt.
Limp breezes are now strong
Enough to disconnect them
Permanently
From the words that burn at close range.
They allow themselves to drift, because it’s easier.
It is cleaner, more “cost-efficient”.
Straying from the museums, we drift from realization (from reality, even)
Into delusions of creation and achievement.
Lo! How accomplished we are!
We, the Cash-Rich People of the Thought-Poor States,
In order to form a more synergized union,
Do downsize the words that disseminate from our digits,
Dutifully drowning them out with more rambunctious
Gurgles from our gullets.


Curators warned and a generation of disobedient phalanges paid no mind.
My feeble hands mold a clay cadaver, grooving oily prints into its hull.
This incoherent signature will fall perpetually unnoticed between the cracks.
No one is looking.