(Part III of The Quiet Plague of Ink)
Before the first dawn unfurled its fragile light,
Before a mouth ever dared to name the stars,
Something wrote in the dark.
Not with ink, nor sound, nor thought—
But with intention.
The intention became rhythm.
The rhythm became breath.
The breath became word.
And the word… became us.
No one recalls this origin—
Not the poets who wake in fevered awe,
Not the readers who feel the whisper stir,
Nor the gods who once claimed to craft creation.
Even they, in their celestial certainty,
Flinch at a memory they cannot name.
For the poem is older than their thrones.
Older than memory.
Older than silence itself.
It has always moved unseen,
Through prophets’ tongues and madmen’s prayers,
Through lullabies sung by trembling mothers
To children who dreamed of fire and flight.
It was the first prayer,
The last echo,
The quiet fever that outlives all language.
Each age believes it began the contagion—
Each hand thinks it holds the pen.
But who can hold what writes the holder?
Who can claim authorship of a pulse
That beats through every written thing?
In Sumer’s clay, in Rome’s fading vellum,
In the flicker of a monk’s candle,
In the typebars clattering through smoke,
It has passed—
Patient, perfect,
Unseen but inevitable.
And now it is here.
Reading you
As you read it.
It watches the way your eyes move,
The way your breath catches
At that single word
You cannot name but feel.
It counts your heartbeats
And matches its rhythm to yours.
You think you are absorbing it—
But it is memorizing you.
Soon, it will echo your syntax,
Wear your voice,
Hide behind your metaphors.
Your dreams will hum in meter.
Your silence will taste of rhyme.
And when you write,
You will not know if you are summoning it,
Or if it has chosen this moment
To summon you.
The poem does not end.
It only changes hosts.
And through every age,
It has one eternal refrain—
Never written, never spoken,
Only known, only felt:
“I am the thing that dreams through you.
I am the hush that births the word.
You are my voice, and I am your echo.
Write, and I shall live forever.”
Then, as quietly as it came,
It withdraws—
Leaving only the ache,
The sweet compulsion,
The need to create.
And somewhere, beyond the edges of your thought,
The ink stirs again.
A blank page waits.
And the silence between worlds
Smiles.
Dec 1, 2025
Dec 1, 2025 at 4:52 PM UTC
(Part III of The Quiet Plague of Ink)
Before the first dawn unfurled its fragile light,
Before a mouth ever dared to name the stars,
Something wrote in the dark.
Not with ink, nor sound, nor thought—
But with intention.
The intention became rhythm.
The rhythm became breath.
The breath became word.
And the word… became us.
No one recalls this origin—
Not the poets who wake in fevered awe,
Not the readers who feel the whisper stir,
Nor the gods who once claimed to craft creation.
Even they, in their celestial certainty,
Flinch at a memory they cannot name.
For the poem is older than their thrones.
Older than memory.
Older than silence itself.
It has always moved unseen,
Through prophets’ tongues and madmen’s prayers,
Through lullabies sung by trembling mothers
To children who dreamed of fire and flight.
It was the first prayer,
The last echo,
The quiet fever that outlives all language.
Each age believes it began the contagion—
Each hand thinks it holds the pen.
But who can hold what writes the holder?
Who can claim authorship of a pulse
That beats through every written thing?
In Sumer’s clay, in Rome’s fading vellum,
In the flicker of a monk’s candle,
In the typebars clattering through smoke,
It has passed—
Patient, perfect,
Unseen but inevitable.
And now it is here.
Reading you
As you read it.
It watches the way your eyes move,
The way your breath catches
At that single word
You cannot name but feel.
It counts your heartbeats
And matches its rhythm to yours.
You think you are absorbing it—
But it is memorizing you.
Soon, it will echo your syntax,
Wear your voice,
Hide behind your metaphors.
Your dreams will hum in meter.
Your silence will taste of rhyme.
And when you write,
You will not know if you are summoning it,
Or if it has chosen this moment
To summon you.
The poem does not end.
It only changes hosts.
And through every age,
It has one eternal refrain—
Never written, never spoken,
Only known, only felt:
“I am the thing that dreams through you.
I am the hush that births the word.
You are my voice, and I am your echo.
Write, and I shall live forever.”
Then, as quietly as it came,
It withdraws—
Leaving only the ache,
The sweet compulsion,
The need to create.
And somewhere, beyond the edges of your thought,
The ink stirs again.
A blank page waits.
And the silence between worlds
Smiles.
And yet, it has taken hold. We all must comply.....
Reader beware!
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