Each return, each re-becoming—
a cycle without memory,
without consent.
I awaken, again, in the same riddle,
a cipher carved into bone,
living lives like lanterns— briefly lit,
swinging above a pit
where time forgets itself.
Is there aught the earth requires of me?
Shall I burn in the North,
drown in the South,
or lie in the middle, unbegotten?
And if I vanish—
will the world stammer, even once?
What presence have I,
but to mimic the shapes set before me?
To perform grief, joy, hunger, prayer
like a mime before an empty chapel?
Each burden I’ve borne, each stain, each psalm—
all dissolve in the same dark
that cradled me before breath.
No hand unravels this silence.
No flame descends.
The madness—
it is not wild. It is not loud.
It waits in the corners of thought,
it drinks from my well of self.
It wears my voice
when I sleep.
And I go on…
Not as one who hopes—
but as one who returns
because she must.
Because the wheel has no mercy,
and the centre has no face..