[thisislife]

Toothless men keep visiting me,
Chattering up and down these rusted halls
As though I am I a recording booth stretching into infinity
And they are begging me to take their voices from them.

I could store them in boxes and seashells and little vials on my walls.

Men keep visiting me with their hair falling out,
Pretending they are snakes and this is only a rebirth of the flesh
And proffering themselves to me with coughed-up voices.
They think I am an oracle.
I would want to be anything else
For I have seen wise men crumble to ash
And I have seen time sweep away still whispering
And caked with dust.
I want to tell these wandering things that I am not salvation
But I haven’t the heart to deny eternity;
So I sit while they drift to me, caked with infinity, searching for something
That none of us can remember any more.
Did we leave it behind in our one-night lives?
We haven’t the will to go back and check,
Only to wonder and wait and waste while whispering
And chattering in near-silence
All down the hallowed halls of where we have forgotten its name,
Where we have filled ourselves with a timelessness,
And where we are imbued with the hope of sleep.

The only difference is that I do not wander;
Yet we are all visitors here.