burnt vapor
I will write when my hands are dust,
when the pulse in my wrist
is only a rumor the earth remembers.
Bury me with blank pages—
I will press my silence into them
like flowers between ribs of a book.
They can close my eyes
but not the sentences
still marching behind them.
Ink is stubborn.
It stains bone.
It seeps into the dark
and teaches it how to speak.
If my voice thins into wind,
it will scratch its name in trees.
If my heart stills,
it will echo in library rafters,
soft but relentless.
Do not mistake stillness for ending.
Graves are only margins.
Death is a period—
and I have always preferred
commas.
So when the world says
“enough,”
I will answer in metaphors.
When the soil says
“sleep,”
I will answer in stanzas.
Even as dust,
even as memory,
even as myth—
I will keep writing.
patent vapor
indigo raft