You drown into the spiral of life

that was never meant to be-

trying to not sell metaphors of being alive

Yet, you dig your fingernails 

into the cracked earth,

the skin underneath cringing at 

every filthy revelation 

shouting the time you held their faces,

felt their jawlines

inside your palms

only to crush their skulls 

that erode with your souring breath.

You keep looking through the hollow frame

that once held your memory map,

telling every stranger

that their name reminds you of something,

somebody,

a mysterious woman,

a funny man 

who once was your favourite neighbourhood. 

You repeat their name. 

Hanging in there with your mouth parted, 

gobbling the emptiness in the eyes of the person

standing in front of you

like a poison

and failing to sense it to be a sign of unfamiliarity.

You were never into reading people anyway.

(Does finding their eyeballs floating in pointlessness 

and mouths making weird shapes count?)

Aren’t we all humans with similar stories? 

World spinning, days crashing, poles kissing- 

winning, rotting, embracing the hollowness and bones.

People laugh-- 

As their collective madness makes you dance on high tides 

on full moon days

waves crashing the sand castles from your past,

the last glance at it collapsing 

before grabbing your hand; 

a forever lost in the sea of faces.

No last words.

No witnesses.

No faces to remember.