Who am I?
Not formed of parts,
but a fracture,
splintered by the weight of forgotten names,
the weight of nothing.
An assembly of fragments
swallowed by echoes,
sunk into the hollow of things never spoken.
TIME, split by fire, veins dripping with prophecy,
shivering in the hollow,
a forgotten scream,
shouting at empty rooms
(what have we become? WHAT?)
THE BODY, bent under the weight of hunger,
muscles wrapped in rust,
aching for truth
that is never here.
DESIRE, liquid and restless,
eating away the flesh of tomorrow,
always reaching, always breaking
(Is this life? Is this all?)
HANDS, cracked and bleeding,
trying to hold what was never meant to be held,
they tremble,
they grasp,
they tear
(why does it never stay?)
THE VOID, speaking in whispers,
it swallows everything—
truths, lies, your name, my name,
they are gone, reduced to ash,
all of us slipping through its fingers.
FATHER, who is a shadow,
MOTHER, who is a wound,
SISTER, who is silence,
BROTHER, who is a scream
THE SCARRED WOMAN, draped in nothingness,
her skin a memory,
her breath a cold wind,
blowing through the cracks,
and she—disappears.
I,
nothing but a witness to my own unraveling
staring into the chaos,
grasping at pieces
I will never understand.
And still, I stand.
Broken.
Unfinished.
Copyright Malcolm Gladwin
March 2025
SHATTERED & UNNAMED
