Death Rattle

it started
a darkness with a
scraping across the tiles of my /nothingness/
that's a poor substitute of
words but it's all I have so it's what i use a
necessity of invention
an invention of necessity (some people are made for it)
it continued
a coldness and a
scratching, a removal of the skin encapsulating this
time this
thought this
face
there's such a fright in the mirror
a flash
and suddenly it's
my nightmare,
or someone's anyway
it ended
a screaming
a crawling
a thought process revoked like
a drunkard's license (or a library card maybe? who knows)
and so we sift through the sands
and the screams and the
shreds of skin that remain intact and
without definition any longer

it goes deeper than this and
it muffles the very breath of the soul
but there's only so much to be said

on paper