Jungle Decay

The dream of the jungle swallows me.

It carves cruel, curling calligraphy into my bones

Until the density of me

Decreases into nothing more than dust in the blood.

I decay.

Crinkle around the edges, brown, and fall to the floor

To be stepped on by some old shoe, soles peeling away.

.

I hunger for the mist,

The fog rolling off the mountains and into my soul.

I crave the nourishment of decomposing rats

And the little, shelled dreams of bugs

That once tried to devour me.

The subject shifts.

The categories change.

.

I am content to be this way,

Content to be

The shadow of a starling flashing in the periphery.

The jungle is here,

Screaming around me and yanking life from the grass,

Swallowing whole.

Decaying, dreaming, dying.