Unthank

Bound by the shell-shocked, damnation raving decay
Frostbitten teeth gnawing on lantern handles
Starving for the kerosene within, serrated eyelids glued
To screens, the ebb and tide of answers momentarily glimpsed
Ideal forms cast shadow images on cave walls
We shuffle through snapshots of grinning infants
Whose backs break under the weight of olympus, and
retreat into the falsehood of unconditional purpose
You don't matter more than what I can use you for
And past that you're a husk to throw away or side-step
Litter; ephemera minutely ticking away at my conscience
floaters with ribs poking through sheet-thin skin
Images of consonants, a primer for my somnolence
To help me doze, rising to baffled brows and
inkwells shattered across dormitory hallways
Each decrepit toe paths back and fro, hurt egos
show, enraged eyes glowing with the sane madness
of our present day, hurtling to god knows where
He might not even, if he exists, that is
to say that my being could be all that persists
my only assurance is rising from sleepless fits
surmising theories on lifelong punishments
that often end before they really begin

I sit silently in rooms of twine
dead eye stare while I learn about important dead men
in buildings named after less important dead men
all the time I only think
that one day I'll die as well
and I'm not even sure how to do it yet