Dei

The Drift of Memory and Ash

It clings,

like wearing a coat stitched from memory—

a jacket of shadows, buttoned tight with grief.

A thief in the night tiptoes through the mind,

snuffing the light with a flick—

and in its place,

a great, unspoken dark.

Can we forgive ourselves

to spare the bitterness?

Let the battle pass like storm clouds,

turn from the ceaseless gnaw

of self-remaking

in the hollow chamber

where some selfish, ancient soul still hides.

Better, perhaps, to be awed by ruin

than dulled by disappointment.

Stranger still, the hum of living—

a flickering fluorescent headache,

buzzing in the static silence,

aching for feeling

as the days slip through our fingers

like warm water, lost

to the tide of years we do not yet understand.

Am I fallen beast or risen light?

Stumbling angel or tattered animal?

The path unwinds.

The leaf browns,

withers,

falls

from the tallest tree.

The ocean breathes.

Waves unravel against the patient shore.

Seagulls wheel and scream.

A crust of foam and brine

lays wreckage at our feet.

The heavens open,

rain whispers sharp and cold.

The wind knifes through marrow.

And yet—

small comforts,

crumbs of kindness

scattered across the infinite black,

like stars, like seeds,

like breath.

To be unaware of flesh,

to fear the breath of another—

a vital spark

fading.

Another word unspoken.

Another day, turgid and grey.

Immortality?

It is driftwood cast ashore.

Beauty—

a thirst that drinks the blood of the moment.

We have walked through ages,

time draped on our shoulders

like a cloak of dust.

Death leans in—

a veil of grey that drains colour from the eye.

Yet still, a moment—

a precious flicker,

a tiny flame

held against the night.

Reflex is river,

is ripple,

is reason.

We move as hunger moves,

as fire seeks air.

Not for morality,

but for motion.

A thought.

A sunlit flicker

on champagne foam.

A trigger cocked by cause and need.

And sometimes—

to survive—

we must become cruel.

To rise,

we trample.

To breathe,

we consume.

We stamp through the soft earth

on bones of those who came before.

And still we look back

to pharaohs and god-kings,

to ideals betrayed by imperfection,

like cracks in marble

or love turned bitter with time.

It is wondrous.

It is monstrous.

A tumour of time,

a hunger for meaning,

a stage for ghosts.

No truth remains—

only feeling.

Only body.

Only ache.

Still, we search the horizon.

East to west.

The North Star rises.

The southern sun

melts into the sea.

We scroll through sameness

with tired eyes,

sip caffeine,

laugh at the same old joke

as yesterday vanishes into digital fog.

Magnificence slips

through the cracks.

Light leaks in

like the sea

eroding the stone.

Take a clump of wet sand

in your palm.

Walk the bog in new shoes.

Lie beside the nettles.

Smell the rot of summer’s end.

Dream of sleep

as sweet as death,

as easy as breath

softened by pills.

Do not look down,

nor up—

for the world was not made

for the broken

or the brave.

But if you must—

stand on the ledge

and feel the wind.

Not to fall,

but to remember

how it feels to choose.

To suffer, to live—

to be dragged back

from the tide,

bones broken,

but not yet dust.

And one day,

we may float

in the great mind of the stars,

folded into the firmament,

our thoughts

like dew

on some distant,

forgotten

light.