We wither, cloaked by the nettles.
Tender gashes against a deadened grin.
Tracks left of our foolish reeling,
Into breached veins and deeper within.

Asleep in a womb of silken blackness,
Amid a dribbling burrow-fantasy.
Through underbrush and tangles, delirious.
Splintered of jarring ecstasy.

All this.

For a mirror of aliveness.
An injected wholeness, a ruptured entry.
You tie your arm to throb in gauntness,
As rebirth, unconscious infancy.

As we die whether or not we choose,
To try to live or simply refuse.

I, as your surrogate heroin,
As your maudlin, hollowing welt.
It took your death for us to find:
That you can only save yourself.

And as I lay me down to sleep,
As the world surrounding lies screaming,
If I wake again at all, I wait
For any reason to continue dreaming.