Eventually, the set
of {who you are}
feels like nothing
when weighed against
the traces
of all you might have been:
things you thought
but never said,
actions you've considered
but haven't ever taken
pass out and in
like shallow breaths
and through you
each day like
ionizing radiation—
like battalions of ghosts
whom you used to
know by name,
but now, whose
faint collective
hunger gnaws away
at those serifs
which ornament each
glyph of DNA
until finally, it's
illegible, and you're free
to join their army.
