Tonight, my sopping bones melt through my skin–
here I will fade into the strips of soak–
enormity within their spongeing lines.
Enormity, and so it goes: a spot,
now spreading on my sheet, of sloppish mulch,
of squelching mush, of flesh and bone and blood
removed of form and shape: of hair and heart–
magnificent upon a time–now gruel
in greys expanding on an empty bed;
these bones were once a church, this blood was life;
yet now all fades in drying, grotesque lines.
A year ago, the bed was made the same,
no shape misplaced, no organ present but
dripped liquid on a crusty, oozing sheet.
Until tonight, the room had sat forgot,
sat gone in memory, but now the cold
enormity of aging porridge riles,
long trapped beneath sandpaper skin; the hot
enormity of sundered dreams recall
sheets grey and cracking, soaked and seeping, time
seems backwards, now, and here I lie; tonight,
not only will my bones retreat from flesh,
end wriggling on the bed like post-rain worms,
slop, fall, and creep, but it won’t serve to last:
sometime–in years, perhaps–I’ll grow anew.
Of this, I’m sure: my skeleton will grow,
form up, solidify; of this, I’m sure:
At present, I am melting on this bed.
Life leaves me, waterfalls away, bleeds out,
in sheets of hungry age it leeches, drips,
falls to the floor and proves that in the end,
enormity is nothing but a lie.