I am splayed

I am splayed

Flayed

From top to bottom

Spatchcocked

Every nerve laid bare

Naked without ambition.

The rudeness

Of it

Is depressingly

Familiar

I am as I was

Before I began.

I travelled

Seeking purpose

Without grasping

The significance

Of its meaning

Believing

If I kept moving

Life would find me.

How easy it is

To spurn our chance

To shine

When the sun

Is on the rise.

In a spurt for growth

We spring up

To be cut down

We swim until we sink

Hollow trunks

Rotten from the inside

Soon to be washed up

In disarray

Beached

Abandoned by degrees

Shorn of hope

Left to dessicate.

I am diminished,

A dilapidated

Old water skin

Cracked wide open.

All found

I am less

Than a breakfast

Of bone meal

For the apple tree

At the bottom of the garden

Which says a lot,

And perhaps

That is as it should be.

Ashes, dust

And all that jazz.