II. A Semblance Waning

I am the iota, the fragile reminder The most meager piece, a fragment enduring The left behind and carried forth But this scrap is empty, hardly the strongest Still standing for it could endure I am like chaff, a reed that is bruised The smoldering flax and flickering wick I'm utterly hollow - devoid not pious The one who has tasted and can't be restored As if some descendant of my very self I roam and scrounge and fight for life A shard of some former glory I scavenge in search of reason, motive or cause Any old morsel that I might feast Or begin laying a brick upon But what's unearthed is nothingness The all-encompassing nullity What do I think I will uncover? What do I expect to change? Survival driven by pain and fear In efforts to save the helpless soul Answers itself to nothing at all A suspect of gravest suspicion And therein lies the great dilemma Might death provide the only rest? But I cannot cause myself to sleep The inmost always tends to err on the side of life Enduring through existence often seems to me An ailing and crippling fixation True life one cannot be freed from But rather, somehow, freed into