Plateaus

we live in the fire
the prophets and -ologists swear burns far beneath our soles,
safe (for now).
we sweat; the heat is always on.
the hot-coal earth throws us forever forward
while our hearts fall behind,
withering, dying, ignored.

I hear lives without words.
I echo words without life.
breezes blow, cities climb,
hearts are broken in blinks of my eyes.

they wail.
I hear their laughter, jackhammers
taste their tears of cold rain
smell their fragrant breaths and bodies.

I try to play with them, curl them in my palms
like porcelain dolls.
they break like waves,
vanish like mist into the way-
ward wind. oh, if not for plateaus—
to always burst the surface from below!
words wouldn't then
be ruined
by salt water.

I sit in ruins, taken lives, "fulfilled potential."
I watch the living and dying consume.
I dream of matter, of things that matter.
I dream of mattering.
I blink; eternity blinks.
my wick shrinks.
nothing matters.